


Lost and Found

by ELG



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Rape Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-21
Updated: 2013-03-21
Packaged: 2017-12-06 01:37:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 111,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/730154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ELG/pseuds/ELG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU set after 'The Price'. An injured Wesley arrives on the doorstep of the Hyperion. When Angel realizes that his condition is a direct result of Wesley’s attempt to change the course of recent events, the vampire with a soul has to decide if he still wants to kill the man who lost his son or if it’s finally time to take Lorne’s advice.<br/>WARNINGS: Rape, torture, numerous dark and violent happenings (no actual scenes of any of the aforementioned but repeatedly referenced), bad language. AU Character deaths.<br/>Pairings: Actual relationships: Gunn/Fred, Groo/Cordelia. Unresolved crushiness: Angel/Cordy, Wesley/Fred. UST: Wesley/Lilah. AU non-con pairings: Angelus/Wesley, AU Gunn/Wesley.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

>   
>  Lorne: “If Sahjhan and that lady lawyer pulled off their feeding plan, you’d have Connor’s blood on your hands.”  
>  Angel: “Don’t I anyway?”  
>  Lorne: “No! You think there is something more you could have done? You did everything you could with the knowledge you had. Just like Wesley. You know, maybe the way to start forgiving yourself is by starting to forgive him.”  
>  From _‘Forgiving’_ Written by Jeffrey Bell
>
>> _Part One_

As they approached the Hyperion, Gunn couldn’t believe his eyes. He, Groo, and Angel had dealt with a nest of uberskanky Skeltor Demons, the kind of gut-wrenching, wing-it-by-the-skin-of-your-teeth-and-last-lucky-swing-with-an-ax battle that had left them all cut, bruised, and none too good-tempered. They had sent Angel home as soon as the fight was over, pointing out to him that the sun was going to be up any minute and he needed to get back to the sewer route before that happened unless he was really eager to make like a pile of burning dust. Gunn and Groo had done the clean up and were now wiped and aching; Angel was presumably already back in the hotel and probably also wiped and aching; vamp super-strength or no vamp super-strength. And now here was the last person on the planet who ought to be outside the Hyperion, sitting by the doors, apparently waiting for them.

What part of ‘You’re a dead man, Pryce!’ had Wesley, the multi-linguist, failed to understand? 

“Damn!” Gunn shouldered his axe and sprinted up the stairs, Groo following him in some confusion. Sharply, Gunn said to Wesley: “You’ve got to get away from here before Angel sees you – ” As he drew closer he noticed that there were several things wrong with this picture; like the fact that Wesley’s eyes were closed and he wasn’t so much sitting outside as slumped against the doors, and the fact he was wrapped in a stinking blanket like a wino. 

The concern was instinctive, something that no amount of telling himself this man was no longer his friend, could suppress. “Wes…?” Gunn crouched down by him and put his hand on his shoulder. Wesley’s head lolled back, revealing a face that had taken the brunt of someone’s fists. His skin was greyish white under bruises, cuts, and stubble, with terrible shadows under his eyes. “Wes!” he repeated urgently, but the man’s eyes didn’t open, and for a second he thought he was dead. The not yet entirely healed wound at Wesley’s throat stopped Gunn from putting a hand there to feel for a pulse, but he put his palm in front of Wesley's mouth and felt warm air tickle his skin.

“Is he yet breathing?” Groo enquired.

“Not for much longer if Angel finds him. What in hell made him come here?” 

“Does not his appearance suggest that Angel has already found him?” Groo suggested reasonably.

Gunn folded back a corner of the blanket and winced. Wesley seemed to be naked under it and he’d taken what looked like one hell of a pounding. If this was Angel’s handiwork then he’d worked fast and _real_ thoroughly before dumping him out here like so much trash. But that still didn’t explain why Wesley had come here in the first place; unless he’d been jonesing for a quick death or at least serious amounts of pain.

The door from the hotel opened; Angel saying in confusion, “What are you two –?” Then his gaze fell on Wesley and he got a look that was way more serial killer than champion of the people. “What the hell is he doing here?”

“You don’t know?” Gunn demanded. “You didn’t talk to him?”

“Why would I talk to him?” Angel was looking dangerous. “Why is he here, Gunn? Did you invite him here? Is this some attempt to –?”

“No.” Gunn held up a hand. “I told him to stay away. He knows what you’d do to him if… I don’t know why he’s here.”

Groo gazed up at Angel in confusion. “If it is not you who has reduced Wesley to this condition then who has done so?”

“Maybe he got drunk, walked into the wrong bar. Maybe he was trying to get himself killed.” Gunn shrugged. “Someone’s done a number on him. Angel, why don’t you just go back inside and I’ll call a cab, get Wesley taken home, and I swear I’ll tell him if he ever shows his face here again….” He looked up at Angel, wondering what he was going to do if Angel couldn’t restrain himself. He and Groo between them might be able to hold him off, but it only took a second or so to snap a human neck when you had all that freaky vampire strength.

Angel’s expression was wavering between murderous and confusion. “Why is he wrapped in a blanket?”

“I don’t know. We just found him a few seconds before you did.”

Angel took a step closer and Gunn braced himself, waiting for that lash out of insane violence again. Angel sniffed the air curiously, then abruptly bent over Wesley and sniffed him again, then recoiled. He looked at Gunn in disbelief. “Christ, Gunn – why did you –? How could you…? Even I wouldn’t….”

“What are you talking about?” Gunn demanded. He looked back at Wesley who was still slumped unconscious against the doors, left eye swollen closed, cheekbone bruised, cuts everywhere, forehead, bridge of his nose, mouth, cheekbone, bruises around his throat. When he lifted back the blanket tentatively, definitely not up for seeing Wesley in the altogether but wanting to know just how far those bruises extended, he saw that they were everywhere, ribs, arms, legs, and the ones on his arms were brutal, deep cuts and bruises as if he’d been tied up, and teethmarks, those unmistakable dual puncture holes that could only mean one thing. He hadn’t been turned – too warm for that, and his pulse was still…pulsing, but he’d been up close and personal with vampires recently and there was only one in the city of Angels that Gunn knew of who would beat him and feed from him but leave him alive afterwards.

“You fed from him?” he demanded of Angel in shock.

“How could you…?” Angel was still gazing at Gunn as if he were some kind of monster. At that accusation, he looked back at Wesley in disbelief. “No, of course, I didn’t. I haven’t touched….” As Gunn showed him the bite marks on his arms, he crouched down next to him and sniffed him again, grimacing as a wave of odour hit him like someone had just reached out and punched him. It occurred to Gunn that he couldn’t smell any alcohol, just sweat and…Oh no, no, no – that was what Angel was recoiling from.

Angel sniffed again and then looked back at Gunn in confusion. “It’s definitely you.”

“It definitely isn’t,” Gunn told him forcefully. “I haven’t touched him. You were with me all night until you came back here, and Groo was with me from then on. I’ve seen Wesley once since… since it all went down, and I never laid a finger on him. And, in case you’ve forgotten, I’m not a vampire.”

Groo was examining Wesley’s bruises carefully. “I think that his ribcage may have suffered some injury. There is heat here.” Gunn looked down at Groo’s hand on Wesley’s side and felt something flicker inside him. The bruising was particularly bad there, black and midnight blue, and his ribs looked lumpy and out of shape. He could see the top of his scar, where he’d been shot, the edge of the scar those stitches had left, the ones he’d popped in the office that time when Angel had… Groo added quietly: “Some of these injuries are older than others. No one could have done this to Wesley over the course of only one hour of your time. And, look here –” He held up Wesley’s thin wrist and displayed a circle of bruises that went all the way around a deep cut, the skin swollen. “He has been bound.” 

Gunn kept looking at that arm, so damned skinny, so damned…fragile. That was what he’d always thought about English. Maybe because the first time he’d laid eyes on him he’d been lying in a hospital bed hooked up to all kinds of machinery that they only saved for the serious patients; the ones no one was too sure were ever going to be waking up. Too fragile to be useful had turned into just fragile enough to get himself shot saving Gunn’s ass, and then he’d become something it was Gunn’s job to protect, to keep safe. His clever skinny white friend in a wheelchair, who had to be carried in and out of cars and in and out of buildings and who always said ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and liked his tea out of a teapot and could always tell if you cheated and used a teabag, but who would take on a demon from his wheelchair if he had to and who could always do the research, however hard it was. He had loved that guy like a brother. Then they’d gone to another world and the guy who needed protecting had turned into the guy who was in charge, who made his own decisions, sent men to die if he had to; someone Gunn wasn’t so sure he knew, but still loved, still wanted to keep safe. Except that guy had betrayed them all when it mattered most, and wrecked everything they’d all worked so hard to build up and was gone now; lost. Lost for good. Except he was here, where he had no business being, smelling like he had no business smelling, and someone had hurt him real bad and then dumped him here for them to find. Was Wes a message now? Kind of ironic if they were trying to send Angel a warning by beating half to death the guy he’d tried to kill. Or was this some kind of freaky demon offering? _Don’t stake us and we’ll take care of your problems for you? Here’s one we did earlier…._

“Maybe someone with a grudge against the firm didn’t hear that he’d left it,” Gunn said helplessly. “Decided to take their problem out of Wesley’s hide.”

“You don’t understand,” Angel said tautly. “I can smell who did this to him. It’s all over him. He stinks of it.”

“Stinks of what?” Gunn demanded, even though he knew what Angel was going to say, knew it exactly, because he could smell it, too. _Come. He smells of come._ That was what Angel was going to say, throwing the word out like a challenge so Gunn couldn’t go on in denial.

Instead, Angel looked him in the eye and said: “You.”

“No way!” Gunn rose to his feet furiously, hands balling into fists, because how dare Angel even suggest that he would ever do that to Wesley; not the sex, _fuck_ the sex, and yeah, he knew Cordy would be all over that statement, but this wasn’t about sex, this was about _making_ him…holding down and hurting and…no way, just no way, ever, would he…. He wasn’t the guy Billy Blimm’s blood had made him and he didn’t do that; didn’t have a murderous fury inside him that could only be doused by someone else’s pain. He wasn’t one of the monsters they went out there to fight, and he would never do that to another living thing, let alone someone who had once been his best friend. Then his anger cleared enough for him to see that Angel wasn’t throwing out accusations. Angel was kind of in shock.

“And me.” Angel looked down at Wesley in confusion, his anger if not evaporated at least temporarily in abeyance. “We did this to him, Gunn, you and I. Except….”

“Except we didn’t,” Gunn finished, now as confused as Angel. 

“Shall I send for some conveyance to have him removed from Angel’s sight?” Groo suggested. “Although I grieve that his actions have caused you and my princess so much distress, I do not share your anger towards him. Perhaps you would permit me to accompany him to some place of healing?”

Gunn reached up to wrap the blanket around Wesley more warmly, not sure why he was doing it, just finding that he had to. Hearing the shot in his head; Wesley asking him if anyone else was cold. But, no, that was the past, and nothing was owed now. All debts were cancelled; all loyalties and all friendship as well, because Wes had crossed a line when he took Connor that could never be uncrossed. “Maybe that would be a good idea. Take him to the hospital. Let them patch him up.”

“No.” Angel was implacable and his expression was hard to read. “There’s something wrong here. Something that doesn’t make sense.”

“He needs medical assistance,” Groo said reasonably. “I do not think it would be humane of us to ignore his injuries.”

“I’m with Groo.” Gunn gave Angel a look that he hoped told him he wasn’t going to be swayed on this. Despite what Wesley had done; despite how badly he’d fucked up; he was hurt and he needed some care.

“He’s been tortured,” Angel said it flatly. “And it happened over days, not hours. Maybe a week.”

Gunn realized he hadn’t been letting himself think about what this meant; Wesley looking and smelling like this, but now Angel had spelled it out it was making him feel sick. _Tortured for a week_. The words were banging around in his skull like a fly inside a locked room; the second they started to make sense was the second he was going to have to barf. “I’m calling 911.” Gunn reached for his cellphone.

Angel grabbed it from his hand. “And not just tortured. I can smell it on him. Smell your come and my come. All over him, Gunn.”

Groo looked shocked. “You are honourable men. I do not believe that you would…”

“I’m telling you, he was –”

“No way in hell!” said Gunn forcefully. “Neither of us touched him. Your spider sense is off, Angel. You’re – smelling him wrong.” _And don’t say that word; not about him, and not about me. Not ever._

Wesley’s eyelashes flickered and he opened his eyes. He looked even more crappy with his eyes open, they were bloodshot and the expression in them was so haunted it took all the self-control Gunn had not to start telling him that everything was okay, they were going to take care of him, he was among friends. Except he wasn’t; he was among ex-friends and the vampire who had recently tried to make him eat a pillow and probably still wanted to.

The man cradled his obviously very painful ribs, even breathing in and out clearly hurting. “Is Fred okay…?” Wesley croaked hoarsely. His voice was barely above a whisper, his breathing sounded laboured, like there was stuff in his lungs that had no business being there, and Gunn looked again at the bruises marking his slashed throat. They were bad. It was all bad. They had taken on two-headed fire breathing sewer dragons and come away looking a lot better than Wes looked right now. 

“Yes, the vodka worked. She’s fine. Why are you here? And what the hell happened to you, man?” 

“Not the – Angelus…? Did Angel become Angelus…?”

“We already covered that at the hospital, Wes,” Angel said crisply. “If you remember, I told you I was still me just before I gave smothering you to death my best shot.”

Wesley licked his cut lip. “If you’d given it your best shot, I would be dead by now.” He focused on Gunn again. “Is Cordelia…? Is she alive? Is Fred alive?”

“They are both alive, Wesley,” Groo told him earnestly. “Can you tell us how you came to be in this condition?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Wesley darted a haunted look at Angel, flinched as Gunn automatically reached out to offer him a hand. “I need to go home.”

“You’re not going anywhere.” That was Angel and Gunn was right there with Wesley’s shiver of instinctive fear. When Angel spoke in that I’ll-pull-your-goddamn-head-off-if-you-even-think-about-arguing tone it was difficult not to just give in, particularly if you were Wesley and Angel had already demonstrated he was more than happy to kill you.

“Angel…?” Gunn gave him a warning look, hoping he wasn’t going to have to fight him because although he would put up a good showing they both knew Gunn couldn’t take him if Angel really meant it. “Wes has been through enough. Let’s just get him….”

“Upstairs.” Angel jerked a thumb at the hotel. “In a bed with no fire damage. We need to find out what happened.”

“No.” Wesley flinched away from Angel’s hand.

“It’s not up for discussion,” Angel told him flatly. “You’re staying here until you tell me what happened to you. And if you give me any argument you _are_ going to be meeting Angelus.”

Wesley gazed up at him, looking scared and defiant at the same time. Hoarsely, he croaked, “I already have.”

Angel nodded. “That’s what I figured.” He caught Wesley under the elbow and hauled him to his feet. 

Gunn hastily took his other arm and held up a hand. “Groo and I can handle it.”

“That’s okay.” Angel opened the door and gave Wesley a rough tug inside. “I can manage.”

Wesley stumbled but stayed on his feet, trying to pull the blanket around himself while the world obviously swooped and swayed all around him.

“What is this object?” Groo asked Gunn quietly and Gunn looked down to see a plastic bag lying close to where Wesley had been slumped. 

“Bring it,” Gunn suggested, then hurried after Angel, who was still yanking Wesley along by one arm at a pace that had the obviously dazed and battered Wesley stumbling in confusion. Gunn took Wesley’s other arm and glared at Angel; kind of hating him a little right now although he would have been hard put to say why. “Careful.”

“He can walk.” Angel hauled Wesley towards the staircase. “Right, Wes?”

Gunn saw Wesley duck his head, clearly unable to meet Angel’s eye. His ‘yes’ was a hoarse whisper, contradicted a moment later when his legs gave out and he would have hit the ground hard if Angel and Gunn hadn’t both instinctively tightened their grip. The pain of that near-fall tugging on his cracked ribs made him choke down an agonized whimper and Angel gritted his teeth before saying more reasonably, “Can you walk?”

“Yes.” Wesley kept his head ducked and Gunn didn’t need to have vampire senses to feel the confusion and pain coming off him in waves. This close up too, he had to admit, that Wesley smelled a lot like sex; the way Gunn smelt when he masturbated; like old come and fresh come and sleeping on the damp patch stinky. Unless Wesley had been moonlighting as a renter on Sunset Boulevard there couldn’t be a good reason for him to smell like that. And, come to think of it, that wasn’t a very good reason either. 

Angel said conversationally, “You’re not leaving here until you tell me what happened to you.”

Gunn darted a worried glance at him. He couldn’t read Angel right now and didn’t know what he was likely to do next. That had happened to most of the people he knew recently. Wesley had gone from being Old Reliable to secretive psycho Lorne-bashing baby kidnapper boy; Angel had pretended to be willing to forgive Wesley just so he could get him alone in that room and try to smother him. Even Cordelia had gone all demon floaty super powers girl on them. Groo and Lorne were making more sense to him, and they were from a demon dimension. No wonder he was loving Fred so much more than the rest of them.

Wesley said hoarsely, “You have no right to keep me here.” Speaking was obviously hurting him, hurting his ribs, hurting his throat. 

“Tough.” Angel yanked him on up the staircase. 

“Angel…!” Gunn hurried to take Wesley’s weight on the other side. The man couldn’t make the stairs; that was pretty obvious, so he either let Angel haul him up them or he helped carry him, which at least gave Wesley some kind of illusion of control over the situation. “You can’t keep him prisoner.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised what I can do.” Angel looked at Wesley again. “Right, Wes?”

Wesley shivered but didn’t answer.

Angel continued with a horrible cheerfulness that wasn’t fooling anyone, “Back in the day….”

“But you’re not ‘back in the day’,” Gunn told him flatly. “And if you start acting like you’re ‘back in the day’ you’re going to find yourself on the pointed end of a stake.”

“I don’t have a son right now because Wesley has a problem with communication. That’s a problem I’m going to help him solve.” Angel hauled him around the corner and up into the first floor corridor; Gunn having no option but to help support Wesley’s other side.

“Slow down,” he hissed at Angel, adding a mental _you son-of-a-bitch_. Wesley’s feet were trailing along the carpet and he was shaking with exhaustion and pain.

“Yes. I think that’s a very good idea.” Gunn looked up to find Cordelia and Fred standing in their path, arms folded, Cordelia looking implacable and Fred looking worried.

Angel faced her without a flicker of shame. “It isn’t what it looks like.” His tone suggested that even if it were he wouldn’t feel bad about it.

“Good,” Cordelia retorted. “Because what it looks like is you and Gunn kidnapped Wesley and then beat the crap out of him.”

“That is not true, princess,” Groo assured her earnestly. “Your friend Gunn and I found Wesley together already in this condition.”

“Oh, we did much worse to him than that.” Angel faced her implacably. “Just not yet. That’s why I need to know what happened.”

“You’re not making any sense,” Fred told him. “Did you and Charles…?” The look she darted at Gunn pleaded with him not to have been a party to this.

Gunn said, “I didn’t touch him.”

“Not yet.” Angel hauled Wesley up as the man slumped against him. “Stay awake, Wes. You’ve got some ‘splaining to do.”

Cordelia didn’t step aside. “I need to hear it from you, right now. Did you or did you not do this to Wesley?”

“No,” said Gunn.

“Yes,” said Angel.

Wesley raised his head with an effort, saying wearily, “It wasn’t them, Cordelia. Please, can you make them let me go home?”

Angel gave him a little shake that made him clutch at his side and gasp with pain. “If you’re the ghost of Christmas future, Wes, you’re damned well going to tell me how I avoid spoiling life for the Cratchits.” He jerked his head at Cordelia and Fred.

“Not future,” Wesley slumped in his grip, head hanging, words barely managed through gritted teeth. “Different world…. Didn’t happen here.”

“Didn’t or hasn’t yet?” Angel demanded. “You did a spell, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

Angel shook him as Wesley’s eyes closed, making him flinch. “Stay with me.”

“Cut it out!” Gunn told him shortly. It was too much, seeing Wes like this, not the guy in his apartment, all bitter and angry, a stranger who stank of whisky and self-loathing, and flat out invited Gunn to see him as the enemy; this was vulnerable, in-pain-but-trying-not-to-show-it Wes; this was someone with his friend’s face, hurting.

“Yes.” Cordelia stepped forward, eyes blazing. “I’m as angry with Wesley as anyone else here for what he did. If he wasn’t bleeding all over the carpet I’d be happy to kick his ass straight out of this hotel and to tell him to never show his face here again. But as he _is_ bleeding all over the carpet, I suggest you start showing some humanity right now or I may have to start glowing in a bad way.”

Fred gave Gunn a look that made him feel snail-size. “I can’t believe you dragged him all the way up here in this condition.”

“This is where the beds are.” Angel looked between them without a flicker of guilt. “I thought he’d rather lie down than fall down.”

“He should be in a hospital,” Fred told him.

“He can sign himself out of a hospital,” Angel said it as if it were obvious. “And he would do three seconds after we dropped him off there. He’s not letting any doctor examine him, are you, Wes?” He gripped the man by the shoulders and gave him another shake that made him flinch and barely stifle an exclamation of pain but did jolt his eyes open. “Now, how about you all get out of our way and let us get Wesley to a nice soft bed?”

“If you hurt him….” Fred was trembling with indignation and Gunn felt a spasm of something that felt like jealousy. He had a sudden memory of Fred clinging so tightly to Wesley’s hand in Caritas.

“I can’t hurt him,” Angel told her quietly. “There’s nothing left to do to him that hasn’t already been done.”

That made Wesley make the effort to haul his head back up. “No,” he said hoarsely. “You haven’t –”

“Haven’t turned into Angelus and killed Fred and Cordy?” Angel demanded. “Because that’s kind of what I’m hoping to avoid, Wesley, so I’d appreciate some help with that.”

“It didn’t happen here,” Wesley whispered again; voice a soft croak.

“You already said that.”

“Because it’s true.”

“Came with a timeline, did it? Your trip to the wrong side of reality?”

Wesley gazed up at him out of bloodshot eyes. “Yes.” He coughed, putting a hand up to his mouth. Blood spattered on his palm but he didn’t seem surprised, more interested in clutching at his ribs as each cough tore through him. Gunn exchanged a horrified look with Cordelia.

“We need to call an ambulance,” Gunn said urgently.

“Now!” Cordelia agreed.

“It looks worse than it is,” Angel insisted brutally. He hauled him down the corridor, not seeming to care that Wesley’s feet were trailing. Gunn hastily caught his other arm and held him up, darting Angel a look that he hoped made his feelings clear – not that Angel seemed to give a crap about anyone else’s opinion right now. “What aren’t you telling me?” Angel enquired.

“You don’t need to know.” 

Angel looked across Wesley’s hanging head to meet Gunn’s eye. “Gotta say I don’t appreciate you still being such a stubborn little son-of-a-bitch, Wes. I was hoping trying to make you eat a pillow might have made my feelings about that pretty clear.”

“I’m not your problem any more.” Wesley seemed to be clinging to consciousness by a fingernail but there was something resolute even in his exhausted body and hoarse whisper of a voice. “You’ve all made that abundantly clear.”

Angel hauled him over to the bed and dumped him unceremoniously on the mattress. Wesley cried out at the contact and Fred said reproachfully, “Charles!”

“It’s not me.” He elbowed Angel, hard. “Cut it out, you bastard.”

“Guess what?” Angel ignored them all to address Wesley, who was trying to keep the blanket wrapped around him as he struggled to turn over onto his side. “You’re in luck. I just made you my problem all over again. And you don’t get out of here until you tell me what you did and what I did and what Gunn did, and why we did it, and how we stop any of it happening here.”

Wesley gazed up at him, blood trickling from his mouth where his lip had broken open again. He wiped his blood-stained hand on the stinking blanket wrapped around him, his gaze defiant. “Already taken care of.”

Angel gazed at him for a moment and then pulled back the duvet on the bed, tipped Wesley unceremoniously under it, then yanked the blanket out of his grip, rolling him over onto his back as he did so. Wesley cried out again and Cordelia marched forward to give Angel a look that was far from friendly. 

Angel met her gaze levelly. “If we let him go home he’ll take an overdose. If we take him to the hospital he’ll sign himself out and walk under a bus. If you want him dead then call him that ambulance.”

“If you weren’t the only person in this hotel who really wants him dead, I might be more convinced you have Wesley’s welfare in mind,” she retorted.

“I don’t,” Angel assured her. “I have yours and Fred’s, not to mention Gunn’s. Because, last time I checked Gunn wasn’t a vampire, and he didn’t fuck his friends for fun. Not against their will anyway. And not after burning his initials into them with a hot – what was it, Wes? Coat hanger?” He lifted up a corner of the duvet and Gunn saw the ‘G’ on Wesley’s right ass cheek; his very bruised ass. 

Seriously worried he was going to hurl, Gunn quickly yanked the duvet out of Angel’s hand and over Wesley and turned to Fred; wondering if what she was seeing right now was the guy she’d had to hit with a chair leg to stop him from killing her. “I didn’t do that. I would never do that.”

“Not while you’re human and have a soul.” Angel reached down and hauled Wesley up the bed, stuffing a pillow under his head and covering him with the duvet in a way that seemed as uncaring as possible yet nevertheless meant that Wesley was arranged a little more comfortably than he had been before.

“You don’t need to worry.” Lying on his front, Wesley pressed his bruised cheekbone against the cool linen of the pillow as if he hadn’t felt anything soft touch his body in a very long time. “It was a different world and we’re already past the point where it diverged from ours. I just needed to be sure....” And then his eyes closed and Gunn saw him slip into something that was either sleep or unconsciousness from sheer exhaustion.

Gunn turned to Angel in angry confusion. “What the hell is going on?”

“I don’t know.” Angel nodded at Wesley. “But he does. And I’m going to make him tell me.”

Cordelia was gazing at Wesley as if everything hurt. “What do you think happened?”

“I think he tried to undo what he did. Tried to go back to a time before he took Connor but something went wrong with the spell and he ended up somewhere else instead.”

“Another dimension?” Cordelia’s eyes widened in understanding. “Like the one that skanky evil Willow came from that time?”

“Maybe.” Angel continued to gaze at Wesley with an unreadable expression on his face. If he hadn’t known better, Gunn would have said that was a flicker of concern in his brown eyes. “Or he went forward instead of backwards, and the dimension he visited was the future. Either way I need to know for sure.” He reached forward and lifted the duvet off Wesley’s now naked body; letting them all get a good look at the mottling of bruises, the burns and welts across his back, the grip marks on his hips. “Because this looks like a future worth avoiding to me, wouldn’t you agree?” He covered him back up and Gunn looked around to see Cordelia, Fred, and Groo all with their eyes averted and grimacing.

“He needs to sleep,” Cordelia said stoutly. “Whatever happened to him, and wherever it happened to him, it clearly wasn’t a day at the funfair. If you won’t let him go home and you won’t let us call him an ambulance, the least you can do is leave him alone.”

“Sure.” Angel shrugged, face still unreadable. “I’m good at that.”

“So, get out of here and leave him alone.” Cordelia marched to the door and held it open. 

Gunn was positively eager to get away from his battered and naked once-friend and especially that incredibly disturbing ‘G’ on his ass. Fred gave Wesley a look of such compassion and anxiety that he was torn between loving her more for being so loyal to the screw-up that was Wesley, even after what he’d done, and getting another twinge of anxiety about her maybe having more in common with Wes than him. Groo had already politely taken his leave, but when Gunn looked back, Angel was still standing by the bed looking at Wesley’s bruised cheekbone and black eye with an unreadable expression on his face.

“Angel…?” Cordelia warned.

Angel abruptly spun around and walked out of the room. “You might want to get him some painkillers,” he said as if he didn’t care. “Some bandages might not be a bad idea either.”

“I’ll take care of it.” Cordelia looked across at the man on the bed and her face softened. “I’ll take care of him.”

“Yes, we will.”

Gunn found that Fred was standing there with her arms wrapped around her chest, looking at him and Angel as if she didn’t like them very much. He tried to take her hand, “Fred, we didn’t do anything to Wesley.”

“We did everything to Wesley,” Angel returned.

“Not this version of us,” Gunn retorted.

“Not yet,” Angel said enigmatically. 

Angel walked away and left Gunn feeling sick inside and wondering why he was now having to carry the guilt for something he didn’t have any memory of doing and as far as he was concerned _hadn’t_ done. Then he realized it wasn’t that which was making him feel guilty; it was what he had done, which was leave Wesley alone when he evidently needed them all the most; an isolation which had obviously led to…this. Whatever this was. 

Thinking of the bruises all over Wesley’s body, the ribs that Groo had thought might be broken, Gunn turned to Fred. “Those bandages could be a good idea.”

She nodded. “I’ll get them.”

He caught her hand. “Fine, but you shouldn’t be the one to – Cordy and me can do it. Wes wouldn’t want you to. He wouldn’t want you seeing.…”

She looked at him in dismay for a moment and then stepped back. “I’ll get them.”

Cordelia looked back at the man on the bed. “Do you understand any of this?”

“Angel thinks Wesley is a big flashing warning light. Wesley thinks whatever happened where he was isn’t going to happen here. Angel isn’t so sure.” Gunn swallowed. “I don’t want to think about it.” He really didn’t. He was like the guy with the Midwich Cuckoos right now and all he wanted to be seeing was a blank wall. Not that ‘G’; definitely not that ‘G’. It was what he’d do; in some part of his mind, he knew it; could glimpse it anyway, how the darkness would take him. Remind Wes he was the alpha male and Wes was his property; the way things had been before. _Come on, English, you know you’re my man... Who’s your ruler, baby? Say it. Say my name._ That was what happened when you became a vampire, all the good impulses in you got twisted into bad ones, so that protective became possessive, people changed from what you loved to what you owned; and the darkness already in you bubbled to the surface, scum rising to the top. Maybe what that other Gunn was from that other world or time was in him somewhere; buried deep. No, he wasn’t going to do this; wasn’t going to feel guilty about something someone had done who _wasn’t_ Charles Gunn.

“If it leads to Fred and I being dead and you and Angel being soulless vampire killers, I think maybe we should think about it,” she countered.

“Angel said we…What those versions of us did to Wesley – I would never do that. I could never do that to anyone.” Gunn wondered if this was just a bad dream he could wake up from; still remembering the shocked accusation in Angel’s eyes for those first seconds when he had really believed that Gunn would do that.

Cordelia sat on the corner of the bed and gently stroked Wesley’s hair. Gunn had a sudden flashback to her being in the hospital after he’d been shot by a zombie policeman. The expression in her eyes was just the same now as then.

“Wesley Wyndam-Pryce,” she told him softly. “You really are an idiot.”

“I think that’s a given,” Gunn shrugged.

“Why didn’t he tell anyone?” She looked across at Gunn as if he could somehow answer what they had all been trying to answer without success.

“He was trying to protect us.” Fred sounded close to tears. Gunn looked around to see her in the doorway with the first aid kit in her hand. “Trying to protect Connor, trying to protect Angel, trying to protect the rest of us. So busy trying to keep us all from danger that he walked straight into it and took Connor with him.”

“No, why didn’t he tell us he was going to try to change time?” Cordelia demanded. “Hello? Demon powers here. Lorne – more demon powers. Angel – kind of invested in wanting to get his son back. Wouldn’t you think a phone call saying ‘Hi, sorry I totally screwed up all our lives and by the way I’m trying to fix it with some incredibly dangerous dark magic mojo,’ might have been a good idea?”

Gunn edged a step closer to the bed. “Look, Cordy, if you think Angel’s dangerous to Wesley I’m cool with taking him to the hospital. I don’t give a damn what Angel says. He can’t keep Wes here against all our wills. Groo would help me. We could manage him between us. Get Wesley some proper medical attention.”

Cordy stroked Wesley’s hair again, gently, easing it back from the bruise on his forehead, eyes distressed as she looked up at Gunn. “And what if Angel’s right? What if he checked himself out and walked under a bus?”

Sighing, Gunn took the first aid kit from Fred and opened it. “Then I guess we try it Angel’s way, but if he –”

“We won’t let Angel hurt him.” Cordelia was still stroking his hair. “Whatever Wesley did, however badly he hurt us all, no one else gets to touch him while I’m here.”

Gunn felt reassured, not by demon powers Cordy, or landline to the Powers That Be Cordy, but by the Cordy he remembered meeting all those months ago, the one with her dumb little ladysmith axe, the one who wouldn’t give up whatever you told her. She was about as pissed with Wesley as it was possible for a human being to be, but that didn’t mean she didn’t still love him, and if she said she wasn’t going to let anyone hurt him, then that was about the best protection Wesley was going to get that didn’t involve a foxhole and a tank, and even then he wasn’t sure that the Chase protection method wouldn’t be better.

Gunn took out the iodine, poured some onto a pad of lint and handed it to Cordelia, then they were gently peeling back the duvet and both trying not to flinch at what had been done to their friend…

***

_Six Days Earlier_

Wesley took a deep breath and went through it again. Logically, how could he make things worse than they already were? The time surrounding his translation of the prophecy had already taken on the aspect of a nightmare. From that first terrible night of fitful dozing at his desk, to visiting the Loa, to trying to reason with Holtz, to deciding that the prophecy had to be a lie because Angel would never hurt this child, to being sledgehammered by those portents of earthquake, fire, and blood, to bludgeoning Lorne, taking Connor, looking into Angel’s trusting face and lying to him, to making that last fatal misstep that had led to him lying on the ground with the blood oozing from his slashed throat and Connor being carried into a hell dimension and inevitable death, what could he have done that would have had a more wretched result for everyone concerned? Angel had lost the baby he loved so much. Connor had lost his life anyway. And he had ended up an outcast for no reason, having achieved nothing except to earn the undying enmity of people who had loved and trusted him.

He looked at the spell again. Yes, it was dark magic; darkest of dark magic. Entirely demonic and written in a demonic tongue which he had been wrestling with for days. Time or place? Every source he looked at slurred the definition. Was this a spell that took one back to a time before a particular event or to a place where it had not yet occurred? Such a small difference that he wondered it if mattered. Were they not even one and the same? Had it not been for his encounter with that vampire Willow from a different dimension he would have thought nothing of it. But that had come about due to a wish. A wish that was in effect a spell. 

However much he told himself he could not make matters worse than he already had, he needed to accept that there was an outside possibility that this time or place, that the choice he made, could have serious repercussions for people other than himself. Cordelia had almost destroyed Sunnydale with her careless wish, but she had been a teenage girl, slighted in love. He had no such excuse. 

Wesley turned back to the small box for which he had paid so much money. Poisonous to one in every fifty humans, it said in every source he’d read. And if poisonous the death would be agonizing and slow. However, the geshurnik nut of the lower regions did have the property of reversing a spell; once its shell was penetrated, the inner core of the nut was effectively an antidote to magic. If a human swallowed it, the nut would lodge in the gut and within a few days the acids of the stomach would eat through to the core and release the antidote. Or the poison. Depending on whether or not one turned out to be the unlucky one in fifty. However, if he swallowed the nut, in five or six days the spell would be reversed. He should be pulled back to this time, and presumably place – the spell was not too clear about that – and the effects of the spell would be undone. He could effectively make a reconnaissance mission of his own spell, try it out, see how making that other choice had worked out for everyone, and then – if his suspicions were confirmed and this other route was better – he could cast the spell a second time, without swallowing the geshurnik antidote and let this second way take its course. Within a fortnight then, it might be possible to undo what he had done permanently, to still be one of the family in the Hyperion and for Angel to still have the baby son he loved. Certainly there was a risk but Wesley was in no doubt that he no right not to take the risk, given how completely he had ballsed everything up before.

He had killed the baby he was trying to protect. That was the truth of the matter. All that effort and agonizing to save something so fragile and so precious, and then he had been tricked like a rank amateur and the baby snatched from him, dragged into Quortoth, the darkest of the dark worlds. Everything ruined because of his stupidity and incompetence in believing a false prophecy; all those lives wrecked, including his own. 

He owed Angel the child that he had stolen from him. He had arrogantly assumed that he knew best, that he could keep Connor safe when no one else could, and he had been wrong. The baby was better off taking his chances with Angel and the outside possibility that he might revert to Angelus – which, as the prophecy was false anyway, was seeming less and less likely.

Wesley snatched another breath. He was scared, he had to admit it. This was exactly the kind of spell that he had spent his whole life being told no sane man would dabble in. When one was tossing the talons of a sea eagle into the cauldron, not to mention the blood of a phoenix and the feathers of a creature never found in this world, adding the scales of rare snakes and the eyes of a demon that had presumably not wanted to give them up without a fight; when even the dark shamans from whom one obtained the spell and its ingredients made protective passes around themselves to keep you and your spell separate from them, well, there were probably a few clues right there that this wasn’t the best idea you’d ever had. Unfortunately when the last idea you’d had had been as spectacularly ill conceived as his plan to steal Connor and ‘save’ him, even a plan as bad as this one became a step up.

Breathing deeply, Wesley picked up the geshurnik and tossed it into his mouth. It wasn’t easy to swallow and he had to wash it down with the tumbler of whisky he’d poured earlier. He noticed that his fingers trembled on the glass he downed it. Then he prepared his cauldron and began to toss in the ingredients, reciting his Ashkalavan spell as he did so. The mist became purple and then green, he said the word that was either time or place, slashed his arm to let the blood flow, there was a flash of white light, and then everything went dark, and then it was dawn and he didn’t know if he’d passed out or time had just sped a little. 

With his heart in his mouth, he picked up his coat, pulled it on with fingers that still trembled, and then walked outside and began to make his way to the Hyperion.

A few things were possibly subtly different, but he couldn’t remember which car had been parked where three weeks before when he had made his decision; or what colour was the front door of the apartment building across the way. There were no great changes, nothing to reassure him that something had actually happened. He drove through traffic that looked the same as any other early morning traffic. Perhaps he was driving not to a hotel where the kidnap had not yet taken place but to one where he would be killed as soon as he put his head through the door. Thinking of his constant feeling of guilt and crushing failure, all that betrayal and torment for no reason, to no end except to kill the innocent he had been trying to protect, he wondered if he even cared. Either he would find himself in a world where he had not yet sinned or where he would be punished for his sin; he almost didn’t care which it turned out to be.

He parked outside the Hyperion, snatched another deep breath as if he thought it would be his last, and then opened the front doors. There was no Cordelia behind the front desk. That was possibly a hopeful sign as he had heard she was back from her trip by now so perhaps he was arriving at a time while she was still absent. Or perhaps he was just desperate to believe that his mistake was fixable; that there was still something that could be done that didn’t involve taking a handful of pills and a bottle of whisky and going to sleep forever.

The sound of the baby crying made his heart turn over with joy. It was a wail of misery reverberating throughout the entire hotel, an infant sounding lost, lonely, and afraid, but for him it was the most wonderful sound in the world. Connor was alive. He had undone what he’d done. The spell had worked.

“Wes…?”

He turned to see Angel standing by the front desk drinking a beaker of blood. At once he remembered the vampire screaming hatred at him, pressing the pillow over his mouth, and his heartbeat increased. But he managed to go forward as if nothing was different.

“Angel. How are you?” 

Right now the vampire would either be wondering why on earth he was so tense this morning or thinking that he did at least have courage in coming here, to a place where he had been told he would return on pain of death.

“Pretty good. Yourself?” No threat. No violence. Just an expression of curiosity on Angel’s face. 

“Fine.” Wesley realized he hadn’t checked to see if the scar was still there. He put a hand up to his throat and felt the contours of it. Did that mean the spell hadn’t worked or he was simply a traveller in this time line? Of course, he was a traveller, otherwise he would know nothing of the past events and would make the same mistake forever.

“Didn’t expect to see you in today.” Angel put down his beaker of blood and began to walk towards him.

Wesley’s heart began to pound faster, still not sure if this was the Angel who had tried to kill him on their last meeting or the one who was his friend; the one who trusted him so much he’d let him take his baby son home with him.

“Well, you know… research…” Wesley kept searching Angel’s face for clues, but the man was curiously impassive; unreadable. As he opened his mouth to say something else, the crying abruptly stopped. Too abruptly. He looked up the stairs anxiously. “Do you think he’s okay…?”

Angel put his head on one side, still advancing, still examining Wesley with an odd light in his eyes. “Gunn…?”

“Connor.” Wesley turned and found that Angel was suddenly very close to him indeed. He could hear the creak of his leather coat, see the strange light in the brown eyes gazing intently into his.

Angel’s expression changed; thoughtful, fascinated, almost amused. “Connor?”

Wesley faltered. “Isn’t that…? The baby crying…?”

Angel shook his head. “No, Wesley.”

_I’m dead_ , Wesley thought with an odd calm to his acceptance. _I’m alone in the hotel with the vampire whose child I killed; the vampire who warned me what he would do to me if he ever saw me again._

“Is that…?” 

Wesley turned around and saw Gunn coming down the stairs, wiping his mouth. His eyes widened as he saw Wesley. “It is. Well, English, how the hell are you?”

“I’m…fine.” Wesley looked between Angel and Gunn and wondered why they were smiling. Gunn had pulled Angel off him in the hospital; had clearly only let Angel into his room because he’d assumed that Angel would forgive him. And certainly he had turned his back on Wesley very emphatically since then but Wesley had not thought he would be a party to any plan of Angel’s to murder him. “Yourself…?”

“Never better,” Gunn assured him, walking over to where Wesley was standing; no, not walking, swaggering; a roll to his step that Wesley had never seen before; athletic and poised at the same time; like he was high on life and could tango with it until dusk.

Angel put his head on one side and it reminded Wesley uncomfortably of some bird of prey sighting something furry a long way beneath it. “You’re not him, are you, Wes?”

“Not…who…?” Wesley had no idea what he was talking about; just a feeling that he should be backing for the doors and that he would never reach them. Gunn was his best chance here. If Angel sprang, started choking the life out of him, Gunn was his only hope of not dying.

Angel smiled, and it went nowhere near his eyes. “The sweet trusting little Wesley I know and love.”

“One way to find out,” said Gunn and then grabbed Wesley by the arms and yanked him back hard against his body.

As Wesley struggled in confusion, Gunn said, “Hush, Wes. No reason to be scared. Well, okay maybe a few reasons….”

“What are you doing?” Wesley demanded.

“Just…enjoying your company.”

Angel had plucked the phone from the front desk and something about the way he moved was ringing all kinds of warning bells. Angel didn’t move with that careless grace; not usually, tapdancing his way around the place, practically purring with the pleasure of his own speed and fitness; like he was revelling in being a…vampire. Angel stabbed a button on the phone to speed-dial someone and then smiled at Wesley. “Be with you in a minute, Wes.”

As Wesley tried to pull loose from Gunn’s grip he found he couldn’t shift the man’s fingers. There were digging tightly into his arms, while Gunn, bizarrely had his mouth next to Wesley’s ear. Wesley jolted with shock as the man licked his earlobe, and Gunn pulled him back tighter against him. With a sense of complete disbelief, Wesley felt something hard rubbed against his ass.

“Giles…!” Angel spoke as if the Watcher was his favourite person on earth. “How are you, old boy? Still Watching that Slayer of yours? And she pays for Watching, doesn’t she? And I mean from _all_ angles… Tsk, tsk, no need for that kind of language. One quick question and then I’m out of your hair. The Watcher you stole from me – my favourite pet – is he still with you? Oh, don’t worry. I won’t try coming after him. I know you’ve got him locked up where the big bad boogie man can’t make him squeal any more. Bet you’re making sure the bed bugs don’t bite, too. Squirms really well, doesn’t he? And tight…oh boy, gotta love a virgin with a schoolgirl crush – I’ve had two of them so far and I can’t decide if Buffy or Wesley was the most delicious….” Angel held the phone away from his ear and shrugged at Gunn. “He hung up. How rude.”

_Not time then_ , Wesley thought dully. The spell had taken him to a place where events had happened differently; where he had presumably not stolen Connor but something else had taken place which had led to…Angel losing his soul, and Gunn… Wesley looked up at the man who held him and realized there was nothing in those brown eyes of the man he knew, the friend he had loved; these were the coldest eyes he’d ever seen.

“Looks like we’ve got a replacement for the toy Giles took away from us.” Gunn smiled a smile as cold as heartbreak.

“Well, be fair, Gunn, we did break that particular toy, and now all the kings horses and all the kings men can’t put poor ickle Wesley together again. Too busy screaming and rocking and trying to get the nasty bad pictures of the nasty bad vampires out of his pure clean dumb little mind.” Angel danced back across the room, as if he were hearing music in his head or playing a game of invisible hopscotch. “Poor Wes. He always had a problem with reality.” Angel peered at Wesley closely. “What about you, Wesley Number Two? You look like a Watcher who knows all about reality.” Angel put his hand between Wesley’s legs and squeezed.

Bringing up his knee hard and fast was instinctive, as was slamming his head back with everything he had; trying to break Gunn’s nose and Angel’s balls simultaneously. But his head made contact with nothing and although Angel crumpled and staggered for a moment, he straightened up within seconds. Gunn yanked Wesley’s head back hard by the hair, almost breaking his neck. “Naughty, naughty, Wes. You’re going to have to be punished for that later.”

Angel rubbed his groin and grimaced. “Oh boy, yes. Daddy’s going to have to put you over his knee and spank you _really_ hard for that.” He came in fast, pressing his body against Wesley’s, forcing Wesley’s jeans-covered ass back against Gunn’s cock, and then cupped Wesley through his jeans and groped him.

“Get off me!” Wesley snapped, panicking.

“Sorry, Wes, no can do,” said Angel with mock regret. “On account of us needing to take you downstairs, strip you naked, and make you scream for mercy.”

Cold with horror, Wesley could not restrain a shudder. “What happened to Connor?”

“Connor?” Angel licked a finger with relish. “He tasted just like chicken.”

As they dragged him towards the basement stairs, Wesley found his mind was jamming like a stuck record, repeating over and over again that perhaps after all there was something worse than his reality, after all.

***

Outside in the corridor, Angel noticed the plastic bag Groo was still holding so awkwardly and nodded at it. “Was that with Wesley?”

“Yes. I have not looked inside it.”

“I’ll take care of it.” Angel took it from him; not too bothered about showing good manners right now. Wesley being back in the hotel was making him feel as if ants were walking over his skin. He had trusted him completely, believed in their friendship absolutely. And Wesley had looked him right in the eye and told him he was taking Connor home for the night while all the time he was planning to give him to Holtz. Actually, no, Gunn and Fred had told him that wasn’t what had happened. Wesley had been planning to take Connor away to a place where Angel could never find him; to steal his son and Angel’s time with his son; all because of a stupid prophecy that was a lie anyway. Holtz had just set up an ambush and Wesley had been dumb enough to stroll straight into it. What really bothered him the most was that perhaps for the first time in his life he had really tried to be there for Wesley. He’d seen how rough he looked, made a point of telling him he appreciated all the work he was putting in, told him he was a good friend….

It choked him up too much to think about it. That was when the anger just built to a point where it could only be alleviated by going up there and holding that pillow over Wesley’s face again, and this time keeping it there until the job was done.

With a huge effort, Angel made himself go downstairs instead. He looked in the bag and saw the padded envelope, not sealed, but with Giles’ name and address scrawled across it in what it gave him a jolt to recognize was his own handwriting. A second jolt to realize it was written in blood. He sniffed it. Wesley’s blood. He looked inside the envelope and there was a videocassette. Stuffing tape back into envelope and envelope back into bag, he said briefly to Fred, “I’m going out.”

She said, “I called Lorne. He was meeting with a client but I thought he should come back so he’s coming back.”

He was feeling in a mood where he didn’t want anyone doing anything without triple checking it with him but he bit it down, recognising he was being unreasonable, and just nodded. “Good.”

“He’ll be here soon.” Fred sounded wistful and Angel noted without a pang the way Lorne had evidently become the guy the others looked to for comfort and commonsense now that Wesley was an outcast and Angel was… He wondered what they called it in their heads: ‘grieving’ in Fred’s case, he suspected; ‘batshit’ possibly in Gunn’s.

“Good.” He opened the door to the basement, remembered in time that he couldn’t actually go out and do this himself, and sighed. “I’ll wait until he gets here. I need him to do something for me. Tell him I’ll be downstairs.”

 

Lorne arrived in a flutter of agitation and raw silk; too flustered to even tie his cravat properly, hurrying down to the basement in a way that seriously risked scuffing his shoes. “Angelcakes, is it true…? Is Wesley…?”

“Upstairs. Asleep. Or unconscious. Hard to tell which.” 

“Fredikins said he looked really bad. Does he need a doctor?”

“I don’t know. Gunn and Cordelia are seeing to it. I need you to do something for me.”

Lorne was already reaching for his cellphone. “Get him a mystic to help with the healing process? I know just the one and he owes me for…”

“No.” Angel took out his wallet and handed the contents to Lorne. “I need one of those little TV sets with a VCR. Colour if possible.”

“They’re all colour now, cupcake. And can I ask why?”

Angel regarded him levelly. “You can ask.”

It took Lorne a moment to get it and then he nodded. “Oh, I see. We’re in brood mode. Won’t that be a nice change for everyone.”

“He stole my _son_.”

Lorne took a step back at the quiet savagery of Angel’s words. “And bludgeoned me unconscious, which, trust me, I’m not going to be forgetting any time soon. And no one is denying your right to be miserable, vindictive or generally unpleasant, sweetpea, I’m just saying there are other people in this hotel who are suffering as well; people who also loved Connor, people who also feel betrayed by what Wesley did. You could think about sparing a thought for –”

“I don’t have any thoughts to spare.” Angel turned away. “Now get me that TV set, will you? And some honey.” 

Lorne frowned. “Sorry, I think one of us skipped a track…?”

“I need a jar of honey. The good stuff. Royal jelly. And some Canterbury Bells.”

“The kind you ring?”

“The kind that’s a herb. Ask in Meg’s Magicals. Also some Colt’s-foot, Maiden-hair, Hyssop, and liquorice.”

“If you have a sore throat, pumpkin, I know a better remedy than that Culpepper’s Herbal schtick.”

“Good. Bring it with the things I just asked you to buy.”

Lorne backed up. “You don’t have a sore throat, do you?”

Angel just looked at him balefully. “And you’re still here because?”

“I’m not your paid lackey? Just your semi-invited houseguest?” Seeing Angel’s expression, Lorne headed up the stairs. “And I’m lackeying….”

 

It was an hour before Lorne returned which was an hour later than Angel wanted him to be and an hour earlier than he had realistically expected him to be.

“…Take it down there to the dungeon. Don’t worry about the dragon. He only tries to burn you alive if he’s slept with you first….”

Well, that was another thing Lorne was going to get old waiting for Angel to feel guilty about. Setting Darla on fire was up there with smothering Wesley with a pillow on his ‘Don’t give a damn and I’d do it again’ list.

Angel watched the two delivery men struggle down the stairs with the TV and realized that Lorne had managed to stretch his wallet to something a lot more impressive than the 14” screen he’d been expecting. He watched them set it up on the stand and then edge out of the basement without saying a word to them. He felt as if he were having to hold himself away from humanity right now, as if he were dangerous and might bite. There was the evidence all over Wesley upstairs of what he was capable of; right now it felt like there was thin ice beneath his feet and any minute it might crack. He knew he ought to get the man out of the hotel before the urge to kill him became too overpowering to ignore or else not killing Wesley spilled out into him killing someone else.

“Ex-display,” Lorne indicated the monster screen proudly. “And it has a scratch and a burn on the casing. Doesn’t affect the picture, though, which is flat, wide, and crystal clear. Couldn’t let our fearless leader settle for some squintasonic. Especially if it’s a sign that you’re trying to rejoin the human race.”

“It isn’t.” Angel saw the hurt on the demon’s face and sighed. “Thanks, Lorne. It’s a great TV set. Much better than I could have got for the price.”

Lorne nodded. “Well, that was almost civil.” He held up a bag that clinked and rustled. “Want me to mix this up for you? I bought molasses too and a few other things that I guarantee will take the spike out of any throat germ.”

“More like…severe bruising. In the back of the throat.” 

Lorne went a little greener. “It’s for Wesley.”

“Yes.”

Lorne sat down on the stairs. “He told you what they did to him?”

Angel snorted. “Wesley doesn’t tell me anything, remember? Wesley does his own thing because it’s for everyone’s good – even when it isn’t – and gets to screw up in his own uniquely damaging way. But I know Angelus, and going by the pretty artwork on Wesley’s ass it seems as if he trained up Vampire Gunn to be a real chip off the old block.”

Lorne sighed and got to his feet, looking sick and weary. “I’ll make up any potion you like if you think it’ll do any good. Try not to make it a waste of my time though, honeybuns.”

“What do you mean?” Angel frowned.

“I know you still want to kill him. It’s pretty much what your aura is wearing for a hat, right now. But, trust me, it won’t make you feel any better, and if you cross that line the people who follow you now won’t be able to follow you afterwards. Think about that when you’re thinking about the transitory pleasure it would give you to feel Wesley dying. Not to mention the fact that misguided, idiotic, arrogant, and stupid as it was of him to do what he did, he didn’t do it for any other reason than to save your son’s life, and he got his throat cut and lost the friendship of everyone that mattered to him trying to do it.”

“I don’t need a lecture, Lorne,” Angel warned him.

“Glad to hear it. Just get that this is a deal breaker. No one is saying you don’t have a reason to be pissed with Wesley but champions don’t smother people in hospital beds who can’t call for help or have the strength to fight back, Angel. At least, they don’t get to do it twice and still call themselves champions.”

Then Lorne was gone and Angel was left unsure whether he wanted to put his fist through the TV to make a point about how much he did not appreciate being told what to do or just so he wouldn’t have to watch what was on this videocassette.

 

“Knock knock…?”

Angel was still staring at the screen, even though the tape had finished and there was just the crackle of sound, the hiss of those white lines. He looked up with an effort to see Lorne standing at the top of his staircase.

“Can I come in?” Lorne asked.

Angel nodded. “Of course.”

“No, I don’t mean, will you let me, I mean is that tape over, finished, not paused so I’m going to see a part of it or still in any way running?”

“It’s finished.” Angel switched off the TV set, then realize that Lorne was still looking extra green. “You saw Wesley.”

“Yes. I also saw Cordelia and Gunn after they’d finished trying to patch up Wesley. Gunn’s trying to drink his way into amnesia, Cordy’s crying in her room. He needs a doctor, Angel. Some honey and lemon and a Band Aid are not going to fix this.”

“He doesn’t want a doctor seeing him like this.”

“Not really the point, Your Broodiness.”

“I know Angelus. If he wanted Wesley dead, he’d be dead, which means he wanted him alive, which means he was careful not to…do anything that meant he had to find someone else to play with. Wes isn’t going to die from what was done to him, whereas he’d probably rather die than have a stranger examining him right now.”

“Well, not wanting to diss your soulless alter ego’s efficiency as a precision sadist, but Wesley’s looking way too Camille for comfort, and I care rather less about what Wesley wants right now than what’s going to stop him haemorrhaging to death from internal bleeding. He needs a doctor and he needed one ooh…about six days ago, which was probably around the time when the first of his ribs got cracked.”

Angel had a brief unwanted memory of how much a cracked rib hurt; of how much everything else hurt every time that rib was touched, of how a vampire always knew where the broken bones were, the extra painful places that could be pressed a little harder to make the victim writhe and scream.

“There’s someone I know who’ll come because he owes me and he owes me big. I’m not saying he’s a warm and fuzzy guy –”

“You mean a dark mystic?” Angel glared at him. “You want to bring a dark mystic into my hotel?”

“I want Wesley to stop coughing up blood, and Cordelia and Gunn would really like that, too. Dark mystics aren’t party people, I admit, but the one I know is good at what he does, and he can fix the worst of it.”

There was a pause as Angel saw it all, Wesley walking out of the hotel with Connor in his arms, telling Angel that it was just for one night, that the local hospital was so close…ironic really, if it had been another five minutes away they wouldn’t be having this conversation because Wesley would never have survived the ambulance journey; that was how close he had come to not having to be holding this conversation right now. 

Lorne seemed to be reaching for the last of his patience. “You watched the tape?”

“Yes.”

“Then you know he didn’t spend the last six days playing Scrabble so will you please let me call a doctor?”

Angel shrugged, trying to make this concession seem a little bit less like him giving in, or as if he gave a damn. “Fine, send for the mystic. It’s no skin off my back.”

Lorne turned away and made the call in a language even Angel didn’t know, something sibilant and softly spoken. “He’s on his way.” He steeled himself to look at the television screen. “The tape…? Was it…?”

“I can see why Wesley didn’t want Giles to have to watch it. I expect they made a copy, though, so Giles will probably still get one. I gather he got a copy of all the others.”

“Other tapes?”

“The Fred tape. The Cordy tape. The first Wesley tape. They’re proud of their work. Like to share it. Angelus would have done the same in this dimension, if they’d had videotape in his day.”

Lorne gestured towards the TV set. “Does it change anything? I mean…?”

Angel faced him levelly. “Nothing’s changed. I need Wesley to tell me what it was that the other Wesley did differently from him. I need to make sure it doesn’t happen here. Wesley is going to have to break the habit of a lifetime and actually talk to me, using whole words.”

Lorne sighed. “Not exactly the habit of a lifetime, cupcake. It was the only thing he ever kept from you.”

“It was the one thing that really mattered.”

Lorne looked into his eyes. “Perhaps that was why he kept it from you.” 

 

The dark mystic came almost as soon as Lorne called him. Angel stayed in his office, wrapped in a brood blanket of anger and resentment as the man was ushered past. The mystic was wearing purple robes and had odd sigils smeared onto his forehead, straight-backed and almost floating as he ignored Gunn, Cordelia, and Fred – who were waiting in the lobby – to drift eerily up the stairs to the room in which Angel had so unceremoniously dumped his patient. Lorne went with him. Angel guessed Wesley had to be sleeping or unconscious because although he listened for it there was no protest as the incantation sounded; Angel did recognize some of those words – the mystical equivalent of a general anaesthetic. Then there was the unpleasant odour of magic in the air, sharp as coin warmed against skin, metallic as fresh blood. He wondered if that was how bones smelt when they knitted; a body groaning with the effort, as it was forced to heal itself too fast. Angel presumed the dark mystic knew that Wesley didn’t have enough left in him to heal everything; after six days of torture and starvation, Wesley had been free-falling without a parachute, nothing in reserve. There was no other time but now when Angel wouldn’t have been in that bedroom, demanding that Lorne’s creepy shaman did this right, telling him what would happen to him if he screwed up, because Wesley was fragile and human and precious to the people in this place….

Angel turned away from that thought, hating himself for the part of him that was relieved Lorne had sent for the mystic, feeling as if he were betraying Connor with even a spasm of concern for the man upstairs. The grief had become too much to bear recently. He wanted to help others, although it took more energy than he sometimes thought he still possessed to overcome the deadening exhaustion of his sorrow and do something else except grieve, but the anger, the anger he could sustain. The anger helped. It was the flashfire he needed sometimes, to get through the day. He could stoke it like any other blaze, feed off it for another hour that wasn’t just about grief.

Foul-smelling green smoke drifted out of the room and down into the lobby, a neutral place between the mystic upstairs and Angel in his office, Gunn waved the tendrils away absently, Fred coughing without ever taking her gaze off the stairs. Groo was gazing at Cordelia tenderly while she looked like the warrior she had become, staring steadfastly up those stairs as if steeling herself for another battle. Angel wondered if he was the battle she was thinking she was going to have to fight.

Then the mystic floated back out again, still without acknowledging any of them, and the hotel was left with the afterburn of his spellcasting, a smell like singed flesh in the air. Lorne came down the stairs slowly, taking the Sea Breeze Gunn wordlessly handed him and downing it in one gulp before he met their eyes. “Thank you.”

“Is he okay?” Cordelia pressed.

Lorne grimaced. “Well, dark magic has its own rules. He can only fix what Wesley has the resources to mend, and, frankly, Wesley – not so much with the resources right now. My dark mystic friend felt it was in the best interests of the patient’s long-term recovery, to deal with the serious stuff and leave the surface stuff to heal naturally. Unfortunately there’s a whole lot of surface stuff, and those resources he had to use to fix the broken bones and the internal bleeding mean that Wes is pretty much running on fumes right now. He’s going to need a lot of TLC and he’s not going to be getting out of that room any time soon. We’re talking weeks, cupcakes, maybe months.”

“But he’s going to be okay, right?” Gunn pressed. “He’s not going to be coughing up blood any more?”

“His ribs are mended and no longer poking through his lungs. They’re still bruised, but they’ll heal by themselves, and nothing’s broken any more. Well, nothing physical. As to the inside of Wesley’s head – I don’t even want to take a guess.”

“What can we do?” Fred asked.

Lorne shrugged. “Whatever you want, sweet thing. Wes is going to be sleeping off that mystical surgery for an hour or so, and then I’m going to take him some medicine. There’s nothing the rest of you need to do except calm your shattered nerves with a nice alcoholic drink.”

Angel had been waiting for Lorne to come marching in here demanding that he care. Because that was what he did, of course, or what they thought he was meant to do: be the flawless hero who forgave the person who wronged him, mind that he was bleeding, care that he had suffered. The truth was, he didn’t, and he damned well wasn’t going to start now just because Lorne wanted him to.

Instead, Lorne wandered in casually and held up a beaker filled with a warm golden liquid. “I borrowed one of your blood beakers. Hope you don’t mind?”

Angel rose to his feet. “Is that the throat medicine?” As Lorne nodded, Angel took it from him. “I’ll give it to him.”

Lorne said, “And I’ll come with you. Just in case you need some help.”

“I’m not going to kill him.”

“And neither am I, so all the more reason why we can do this better together.”

Angel wondered if they had been talking behind his back and had made some kind of pact whereby he was never left alone with Wesley. That was not going to suit his purposes, as he had a lot of things he wanted to say to the man that could really only be said without witnesses, if he wanted Wesley to talk more or less freely anyway. He supposed he would have to play nice for a few days until everyone calmed down. 

He wasn’t exactly astonished to find Groo hanging around in the corridor that just happened to guard Wesley’s bedroom either. The man made a show of twirling his sword around as if he only happened to be there to practise some moves.

“Nice blade work,” Angel observed. “Is Wesley awake?”

“I am not certain.” Groo darted a look at Lorne who must have indicated that it was okay as he moved away from the door. “Please give him my best wishes for his recovery.”

Angel grunted something non-committal and went into the room. At once the scents hit him and he had to pause for a moment as they washed over him. There was still the bitter after-tang of magic in the air, and antiseptic and arnica from the earlier attempt at tending to him, but Gunn evidently hadn’t had the heart to dump Wesley in the shower and hose him down, so the other scents were still there: sweat and pain and way too much pleasure that smelt like Angel and Gunn.

It was impossible not to be completely unaffected by what he’d seen, of course. He could tell Lorne what he liked; stay as stone-faced as he could manage it; but there had been a time when Wesley was his friend, maybe the closest friend he’d ever had, and the thought of what he had been put through for the past week would have been unbearable. Given that he still thought he wanted the man dead, and if asked would probably have said that a slow painful death would suit him fine, it was a little difficult to justify the pocket of rage he was feeling that had nothing to do with wanting to punish Wesley for stealing his son and everything to do with wanting to drive a stake through the heart of that Angelus from a different dimension. He hadn’t been able to sustain any pity for Vampire Gunn either. At first he’d been full of guilt and compassion for the man he had been, ending up like this, and then he’d had to accept that the creature currently having so much nasty fun with Wesley on the video tape had less to do with Gunn than his shadow. After half an hour of viewing he’d been ready to stake Gunn, too. By the end of the four hours he had felt as if he could never get his jaw unclenched where he had been gritting his teeth for so long.

He crossed over to the bed, Lorne following him closely, presumably in case he made a grab for that pillow. 

Wesley was still lying on his front, the duvet had slipped down to reveal the white bandaging Cordelia had applied so expertly. He was still unshaven and his cheekbones had hollows under them to match the shadows under his eyes. The mark on his right shoulder had bled through even the new bandaging, an ‘A’ ghosted in blood through the linen. Some of the welts had bled through as well, as had one of the bites on his arm. Angel understood the logic of only fixing the bare minimum and letting the rest heal naturally but he was still glad he wasn’t the one paying that dark mystic, because he would have been asking for a refund.

The stink of his own satisfaction all over an injured Wesley was a strange and disturbing combination. Wesley’s sweat and fear and pain and his pleasure; scents that had never been meant to go together in any dimension, yet here they were. He thought back to the hospital, the white rage in his mind, pressing the pillow down as hard as he could, spittle spraying from his mouth in fury. Had he enjoyed it? Perhaps there had been a certain malevolent satisfaction in letting the man know how very unforgiven he was and would always be. He had wanted to hurt him as much as he possibly could just for that moment; dangle an illusory forgiveness that he then snatched away and replaced with the opposite of absolution. But he hadn’t dragged him out of that hospital bed, chained him up in the basement of the Hyperion and then tortured him for fun. Even then, in that whiteout of righteous rage, grief, and betrayal, he didn’t believe that was something he would have enjoyed. But some darkness probably was innate, and his was darker than most, so perhaps he would have done. Perhaps, left to his own devices, with no Gunn and Fred to deal with, and no Cordelia on her way home, he would have done exactly that.

He thought of that videotape and flinched mentally. No, not like that. Not deliberately and with such sadistic inventiveness, find the worst wound and apply more pressure; the worst fear and play on it over and over again. He had been that vampire and that wasn’t who he was any more. Even with Wesley he didn’t think he was that guy.

The only reason that the other Angelus and Gunn hadn’t drained Wesley or turned him was because they didn’t want to stop playing with him. They weren’t in the business of giving such an exciting toy a quick and relatively painless death. Wesley was hard to kill; he’d proven that when Justine slashed his throat; and they’d been measured in their games; done the things that hurt the most but didn’t really break or tear. They’d cracked his bones lightly, they hadn’t shattered them; wanting the fear to build up more each day, the fear of more pain, more inventive acts of cruelty. They had been planning to keep him alive for months. By then he would have been insane, of course; still human, but no longer rational, just something gibbering in a corner, forced witness to their acts of depravity and sadism. 

“Wesley…?” Angel didn’t want to touch him. Quite apart from the fear that a touch might turn into a grab and slam against the wall, he didn’t think there were many places left to touch on Wesley that wouldn’t hurt. Gritting this teeth, he lightly dabbed at his shoulder. “Wes…?”

Wesley rolled over and curled up in the same instant, one arm up to warn off the inevitable blow. For a second he stared up at Angel in wide-eyed panic and then he snatched a breath and took in his surroundings, quickly lowering his arm. His fingers went to his ribs, breathing around the inevitable pain and then snatching an extra breath in surprise when the pain wasn’t quite so bad.

“You’re in the Hyperion.” Angel realized belatedly that he’d been in the Hyperion while being tortured, albeit mostly in the basement. “In your own dimension.”

Lorne said quickly, “How are you feeling, cupcake?”

Wesley blinked again and gazed at Lorne, snatching a few more calming breaths as he did so. When he spoke his voice was hoarse and not much above a whisper but it was even: “Lorne.” His voice sounded deeper now, more grown up.

“One and the same. We brought you something.”

“Concussion?” Wesley looked up into Lorne’s face before glancing briefly at Angel. “Suffocation?”

“Maybe later,” Angel told him. “For now we thought something to help with your throat might be a better idea.”

Lorne was gently helping Wesley to sit up, putting a pillow behind his shoulders so that he could ease back against it gingerly. The sheet fell down to reveal more burns and bruises all over Wesley’s chest, his ribs bandaged and no longer broken but evidently still hurting given the way he winced as he leant back. He took a tentative breath then gazed up at Lorne. “You did something…?” He put a hand to his chest. “A spell…?”

“A friend of mine did it. Only a little one. Just to mend the cracked ribs and the internal bleeding. You still have a long way to go to be well again.”

“Thank you.” Wesley gazed up at him out of bloodshot eyes, the shadows under them shocking in the lamplight. Starvation, Angel assessed, pain, too, of course, those shadows always kicked in the fastest, and exhaustion as well; bone-deep exhaustion. “I’m grateful.”

“Well, you can pay me back by getting well.” Lorne managed a smile; trying for a poker face but the shock at Wesley’s condition still fluttering just below the surface calm.

Angel sat on the bed, still pissed enough to be glad about the way such close proximity made Wesley swallow, looking at him sideways as the mattress dipped and moved them even closer. Angel held up the beaker. “You need to drink this now, while it’s warm. It should help with the bruising and replace some of the fluids you’ve lost.”

Wesley looked warily from the dark golden liquid in the beaker to Angel’s face. 

Angel gave him a mirthless smile. “If I wanted to make you drink my piss, Wes, I’d do it and tell you what you were drinking. But Lorne put this together.”

The demon said quickly, “Scout’s honour, handsome. Prepared by my own fair – well, green hands. Put your head back and let it slip down slowly.”

Wesley took the beaker and sipped it, putting his head back obediently so the liquid could trickle down his sore throat. The bruises on his neck were hard to miss as was that jagged still-healing wound. Angel watched him swallow painfully and had to grit his teeth again. It disturbed him to think that Wesley now knew how he and Gunn tasted. Just at the time when he was the most estranged from them he had been forced into a hideous intimacy with their darkest selves.

Conversationally, Angel said, “I know you can’t talk too well at the moment, and that’s okay. You’re not going anywhere until I get the answers I want anyway.”

Lorne darted him a warning look. “Angel….”

“I know.” Angel smiled mirthlessly. “My bedside manner sucks. But Wesley already knows that. Keep drinking.”

Wesley obeyed him, darting a look from under his eyelashes as he did so that let him know he was only giving in because he had to, it didn’t mean he in any way accepted Angel’s right to order him around. Angel watched him swallow another painful mouthful, and then another, could see his thirst warring with the discomfort each movement of his throat cost him.

“I watched the tape,” he observed conversationally.

Wesley immediately spluttered, choked, and would have thrown up all over the bed if Lorne hadn’t grabbed a towel and held it under his mouth. The demon rubbed Wesley’s back gently as he heaved, Lorne glaring at Angel out of angry red eyes. “Angel!”

Angel was a little shocked by the violence of the reaction. “I didn’t… Christ, Wes, I didn’t mean….” But what had he meant other than that he wanted Wesley to know he knew what had been done to him and had just watched hours of it in glorious Technicolor? Did Wesley think he’d got off on it? Did he imagine Angel had been having a four hour jerking off session over the home movie of his ex-friend writhing in pain? He was two people around Wesley at the moment, one who wanted to hurt him, one who recoiled once he did so at the results.

“I was going to put it in the incinerator but I heard you come back in.” Wesley managed the sentence hoarsely. “I just didn’t want the Giles in that world to have to… I thought anything I was holding when the spell ended might come back with me so I….”

Lorne reached for another towel and wiped Wesley’s mouth with it, moving the soiled one out of sight. “It’s okay. You don’t have to talk.”

“Do you need to…go…?” Angel asked, a little ashamed of himself, as he gestured towards the bathroom. “It’s probably easier for Lorne and me to help you do that than Cordy and Fred.”

Wesley looked over at the bathroom and weariness washed over his face. It clearly looked like a very long walk to him despite only being on the other side of the room.

“Come on, pumpkin.” Lorne slipped an arm under his shoulders. “Your kidneys have taken enough of a beating the past few days. Let’s be nice to them now, shall we?”

Angel gripped Wesley’s upper arm, taking some of his weight as Lorne helped him to swing his legs around and then get to his feet. They helped him over to the bathroom between them, Angel kicking up the toilet seat for him so he could urinate, Wesley having to prop himself up with one shoulder against the wall to manage even that. His body, even with all the bandaging, was a palette of cuts and bruises; bootmarks clearly visible in several places. Rings of red, blue, and mauve around his wrists and arms and ankles from the many times they had obviously tied him up, and the finger-shaped bruises that were…everywhere.

“What were you trying to do?” Angel asked, exasperated by how utterly Wesley had screwed himself with this last insane idea.

“Get… Put things back how they were.” Wesley put his palm flat to the wall over the toilet, trying to steady himself as he peed red-streaked urine into the toilet bowl. His hoarse whisper of a voice made him sound like a stranger, as did his utter exhaustion, in too much pain and too bone-weary to care any more what Angel thought or might be about to do. _Get Connor back_. That was the sentence he hadn’t finished, Angel was certain.

“Why didn’t it work?”

Lorne gave Angel a look of exasperation. “Here’s an idea. Why don’t you ask him your questions when talking _isn’t_ like gargling ground glass for him?”

“Maybe he was never meant to be born.”

Angel just knew Wesley knew how provocative a statement that was to say to him, especially now; his precious baby, warm and gurgling and trusting and loved and safe, lost in a hell dimension because of the man standing right here, an inch away from him, naked and battered to the point where he could barely even stay upright, and Wesley was telling him that maybe all Connor had ever been was a mistake? The urge to kill him was so strong that it felt like a separate entity. He almost expected to look up and see it reflected in the mirror that would have nothing to do with him.

“Or maybe something else was meant to happen and it didn’t. Maybe we screwed up earlier or later or – ” Wesley swayed and Angel realized he wasn’t trying to be provocative after all, despite his obvious death wish, just thinking aloud.

“Don’t talk.” Angel caught him and held him upright. “Lorne’s right. This can wait until your throat’s better.”

As Wesley made an uncoordinated lurch, it took him a moment to realize that it was the basin Wesley was trying to stagger towards. It struck him as incongruous that after all the man had been through it really mattered to him that he should wash his hands after relieving himself but as it did, it did. Lorne took his other elbow and they helped him over to the basin, Lorne quickly turning on the taps for him and putting the soap into his hands. Then turning off the taps when he’d finished and putting the towel in his hands.

Wesley dried his hands, handed back the towel, licked his lips, swallowed painfully, and then looked at Lorne sideways out of a bloodshot eye, managing a hoarse: “Thank you, Lorne.” Given the amount of effort it took to say it, Angel appreciated that Wesley was showing Lorne better manners than Angel had in a while.

“Can I have a shower…?” Wesley glanced up at Angel.

“No.” Angel tightened his grip on his arm as he swayed again. “Not yet. You’ll get your bandages wet. In a few days.”

For a moment as Wesley looked at the shower with longing, weariness washing over his face again, and abruptly looking horribly young, Angel felt a twist of something that was definitely compassion and was trying damned hard to snake its way back into being friendship move inside him. He set his jaw. “Wes, I know you don’t like the way you smell right now. That makes two of us. But you have to heal a little first.” He looked down at Wesley’s body and saw his own hand prints on his body. Fascinated and appalled he fitted his hand to a series of bruises that curved around his waist. He placed his hand around Wesley’s throat not applying any pressure, just wanting to see if his fingers matched the marks there. They did, perfectly, finger to finger-shaped bruise. Wesley went still, rigid and shuddering at his touch, but said nothing. Angel took his hand away.

“Why didn’t you do some reconnaissance? At least check out what you were walking into?”

Wesley swallowed again. “I was expecting you, not Angelus.”

“The prophecy said…”

“Fred said the prophecy was a lie.” Wesley lowered his gaze, not wanting Angel to read a memory that was evidently painful.

Lorne took Wesley’s arm and began to steer him back to the bed. “I’m going to heat up that medicine for you, cupcake, because I guarantee that if you can keep it down it’s going to make your throat feel like it’s been kissed by an…by cherubs.” As he helped Wesley back into bed, Lorne gently lowering him onto the mattress to minimize the jolting of his battered body, Lorne said, “What happened to the other Wesley?”

“Giles rescued him,” Angel answered so Wesley wouldn’t have to. “But not before –”

“He’s a basketcase,” Wesley said as crisply as one could through a hoarse whisper.

“Why him and not you?” If Lorne had been hoping to give Wesley an affirmation speech reminding him of just how strong he was, it failed.

Wesley looked up at him out of those haunted bloodshot eyes and said softly, “Because I didn’t have to watch Fred and Cordelia raped to death in front of me.”

Lorne shuddered and then covered him very gently with the duvet. “That’s not going to happen. Ever.”

Wesley looked up at him hopefully. “You know that for certain?”

Lorne nodded without hesitation. “Read people’s paths, remember, sugarplum? It doesn’t happen here.”

Wesley actually smiled and Angel was taken aback by how young he looked when he did that; and how trusting he was, because it was as obvious to him as an oncoming truck on an empty road that Lorne was lying through his pearly white teeth. No one’s future was that clear; there were always different paths and that had to be a possible final outcome for both of them – hanging around with someone who could become Angelus would always make it a possibility. He had an unwanted flash of images of naïve Wesley beaming at him triumphantly after a fight, trying to dance, lighting up over that damned Shanshu prophecy because Angel was going to be a real boy some day….

“When you’re better we can talk some more,” he said, sitting down on the edge of the bed, the mattress creaking and dipping under his weight. “Work out what went wrong in that dimension.”

“Because everything went so well here….” Wesley murmured in his new, deeper, ruined voice, turning away from him as he eased himself onto his side.

“I didn’t kill Connor here.”

Wesley’s spine stiffened and Angel wondered why he’d said that; said anything that could be construed as justifying Wesley’s betrayal and deception. Nevertheless these were unavoidable truths. “I didn’t turn Gunn, kill Cordy, kill Fred, torture you.”

“And if Lorne’s right, you never will,” Wesley said hoarsely. “Well, except maybe for that last one.”

“Let me get that medicine heated up for you, crumpet.” Lorne picked up the beaker and looked at Angel expectantly. 

“I can sit with him.” Angel shrugged as if he didn’t care, certainly didn’t want to, was just offering to do his share.

“No need.” Lorne opened the door and continued to look at Angel while calling across to Wesley: “You’ll be okay by yourself for five minutes while I get the microwave to work its magic, right, Wesley?”

“Yes.” A hoarse agreement from a Wesley who evidently didn’t want Angel sitting by his bedside any more than Lorne wanted to leave him there.

“Fine.” Angel got to his feet, refusing to admit that he was hurt; that no one around here seemed to remember that he had been doing vigils by Wesley’s bedside before anyone else in this hotel. Two years of taking care of the guy, protecting him, trusting him, believing in him when no one else ever had, and one moment of grief-stricken fury had him marked forever as someone who couldn’t be trusted alone with him. “You really think I’d do that?”

Wesley turned over carefully, bracing his various pulled muscles and cuts and bruises against the pillow, looking at Angel as if he were seeing him for the first time. And that was Wesley, at last, the guy he recognized, the one who looked right at him in a way no one else ever did. “Do what?”

“Torture you?”

He knew as he said it that it was a dumb question. Wesley knew better than anyone what he was capable of; not just because of all those years of studying Angelus to the point where he knew where Angel had been at any given moment of history better than the vampire himself; but because he’d just spent six days being sadistically tortured by Angelus and his acolyte.

Wesley moistened his lips and then said hoarsely, “No.”

Angel stepped back. “You sure about that?”

“You’d kill me. You wouldn’t torture me first. You don’t torture people. You’re not Angelus.”

Angel thought of what he’d just watched on that videotape, the way someone with his face and voice and body and strength had done what had been done to Wesley; the way his fingers fitted those bruises so perfectly; the way he’d deliberately made it seem as if he were going to grant Wesley the forgiveness he knew he was craving before he screamed all that hatred at him and tried to smother him. “Glad one of us is so sure about that, Wesley,” he said quietly. 

Then he followed Lorne out, only pausing briefly in the doorway to find Wesley looking after him with a frown on his face, as if Angel were a puzzle he was still trying to figure out.

Outside, Lorne firmly closed the door and then said, “Let’s not tell him about Linwood, eh? Let Wesley hang onto some of his illusions.”

Stung, Angel opened his mouth to refute it and then realized he couldn’t, because he had been ready, willing and able to torture Linwood, and if torturing Wesley, even when he’d been half dead in that hospital bed, would have told him a way to get Connor back, he would have done it in the blink of an eye. He shivered inside as he thought of the madness that had gripped him, that even now was just beneath the surface of his precarious humanity: rage, despair and overpowering grief turning him into someone he would have liked to pretend he didn’t recognize. _Love is a terrible thing_. Wesley had known exactly what he meant when he said that. Which meant he had known how Angel was going to react. Remembering the way Wesley had just lain in that bed and looked up at him as if he knew what were coming as Angel snatched up the pillow, Angel wondered if Wesley had always expected taking Connor to lead to his death.

He remembered Wesley gazing into his eyes and saying: “We know you’re a man with a demon inside him, not the other way around.”

Thinking of those bruises that fitted his fingers so completely, of the scenes from that videotape in which someone with his face had played such a gleeful part, he closed his eyes briefly and wondered if Wesley could look him in the eye and say that now, and that even if he did it would still have the power to convince Angel.

***

Fred knew she had been right all along and if they could just stop treating Wesley like a pariah and get him to the Hyperion, Gunn and Cordy and eventually even Angel would start treating him like a friend again. She and Lorne had never really stopped treating him like a friend. She’d been a little angry – okay a lot angry with him – about what he’d done and not telling the rest of them about it and that had come out in the hospital, but pretty soon afterwards she had been thinking that everyone had yelled at him, Angel had _really_ yelled at him, and given killing him the good old college try, and worst of all he’d failed in what he’d been trying to do, which, for someone as conscientious as Wesley, must have been the worst punishment of all. And she didn’t see how they could just pretend they didn’t know this person who was their friend, or just stop caring about him overnight because he’d made a mistake – okay, a gigantimous ginormous mistake but still only a mistake – like he was a light switch they could just flick to the ‘off’ position. 

He’d been at the Hyperion for three days now and she thought everyone was starting to be a little less twitchy about it. People weren’t checking with Angel and what his mood was before they mentioned Wesley’s name in something above a whisper – which she thought had to be a good sign. And Angel wasn’t getting that eye bulging thing he’d done before when Wesley’s name was mentioned. He was actually being pretty calm and just nodding when Lorne mentioned taking Wesley up some soup or some more of that honey medicine that smelt really liquoricey but apparently tasted more like very sweet fennel.

She knew things were being kept from her and she kind of resented it and was kind of relieved. She got that what had happened in that other dimension had been really bad but wasn’t quite sure how bad, as in specifics of badness, and everyone seemed to agree that Wesley wouldn’t want her to know, so although a part of her thought it was pretty dumb that everyone else could know something she couldn’t, as if she were some fragile little flower, or possibly just a really unworldly Texan, the other part did think it was kind of sweet that even after all the badness Wesley was still trying to protect her. 

Charles was still having major problems about something and not talking to her about it when she tried to gently coax him. She had tried again that morning when they drove over to Wesley’s apartment. Lorne had said tentatively that he didn’t think Wesley was going to be fit to go home for a good long while and maybe they should sort of kind of acknowledge that and let the poor schmuck at least have some of his own underwear. Everyone had got really shifty when it came to mentioning Wesley’s underwear, especially Charles, and Angel had poured himself some blood straight after as if he wished it were whiskey. But the upshot was that she and Charles had driven over to Wesley’s place with the spare key to Wesley’s apartment that had been left in the Hyperion when his stuff was being packed up – and it was kind of freaky to think that key had just been sitting there when Angel was so crazy and wanting vengeance and Wesley was sitting in his apartment with that wound at his throat and no spyhole and no deadbolt on his door. Which they found out when they turned the key in the lock and went inside and found there wasn’t even a chain. She asked Charles if he wanted to talk about it and he had said he didn’t, and she’d pointed out for about the hundredth time that he couldn’t be feeling guilty about what something a vampire version of him had done in a different dimension because that was just crazy, and Charles had just looked sad and said, “Well, then I guess there’s a lot of crazy going around right now.”

It had been strange putting Wesley’s things into a cardboard box again but although she was so sorry that he’d been hurt by the spell he’d done and looked so ill and tired and with all those bruises all over him, she preferred packing his things into a box to take back to the Hyperion to leaving them for him at the hospital and warning him not to show his face again.

The first thing she’d seen on opening the door had made her stomach lurch and for a second she’d thought she had to just grab it and hide it so Charles couldn’t see it. But his legs were longer than hers and he’d gotten to it first. The letter waiting to be posted, with the stamp on it but which Wesley hadn’t dropped into the mail – on account of being busy in another dimension getting pounded half way to Abilene. The letter addressed to Lilah Morgan at Wolfram & Hart.

Charles had held it up to the light then said, “Screw it” and opened it. Which Fred would never have done but she had to admit was kind of glad he had, as she wanted to know what was in it too and whether or not it was something Angel could be told about. 

_Dear Mr Wyndam-Pryce,_

_Oh, that sounds so formal but as you’re being so stiff upper lippish with me I suppose it will have to do. This is an equally formal offer of a job, the same offer and the same job you keep turning down. My sources tell me that you’re almost out of single malt, down to your last bottle of Bordeaux, and haven’t restocked on those TV dinners that would barely feed a canary. Your rent does appear to be paid up until the end of the quarter but as you’re going to be eating the wallpaper by the beginning of next month, I don’t think it’s appropriate for you to keep being quite so Little Lord Fauntleroy with me._

_As I said before, no one is asking you to betray Angel – well, no more than you already have – Wolfram & Hart just wants the use of that big brain of yours. As well as that six figure salary and full benefits package I keep telling you about – and as an Englishman, let’s face it, you are going to need the dental before too long – you would have full access to the finest mystical, occult and supernatural reference library in the world. Who knows, maybe the secret lies somewhere in our reference books as to how you could get Angel’s kid back? I haven’t checked it out myself – it is extremely extensive – so, somewhere at the back there could even be One Hundred and One Ways to Get To Quor’Toth. What do you say? Want to go on wallowing in your misery and penury as the outcast nobody loves or would you like to have a life again? Let’s face it, we both know that if you’re waiting for the good and plentys over at the haunted hotel to take you back again, hell will be freezing over first. There’s nothing so judgemental and unforgiving as the morally upright to the morally tarnished and you’re pretty tarnished these days, what with being Judas Iscariot’s understudy and all. Ninth level of hell ringing any bells with you, Mr Wyndam-Pryce? _

_Look at the enclosed contract, and if you’re clever – and all my sources tell me that, contrary to the appearance of recent events, you really are – you’ll sign on the dotted line, date it, and send it back in the enclosed SASE._

_Yours sincerely,  
Lilah Morgan, attorney-at-law_

 

“Lilah the laywer-bitch has been trying to recruit Wes?” Gunn held the letter out to her in disbelief. “Can you believe the face of that woman?”

Fred went through the envelope and found the contract. Unfolding it with shaking fingers she was relieved to see that in the place where Wesley’s signature should have been he had written very neatly: _Go to hell. If you need directions just ask the Senior Partners, I hear they own the freehold._

“He turned her down.” Sighing with relief she looked up to find Charles gazing at her in shock. “Well, I knew he would. Of course he wouldn’t ever work for Wolfram & Hart. It’s just that – I didn’t know he was going to take Connor so I’m feeling he’s a bit more of an enigma right now, and – there isn’t any food in the house, which is maybe because he knew he was going away and he didn’t want it going off or…”

“He’s flat broke.” 

She followed Charles gaze around the apartment and had to admit it didn’t look like the kind of place where someone would be poor. It was full of nice things. Books and more books and yet more books and some weapons that were really interesting… and actually that was pretty much it, the books just made it seem kind of homely as they were all old and faded and leatherbound and smelt nice. It was neat and tidy too, everything folded away in the drawers, nice linen on the bed, and an apple mac laptop that looked as if it were pretty new. There just didn’t seem to be much in the way of food in the kitchen. She remembered Cordelia telling her that when Wesley had first come to LA he’d been pretty broke then and he hadn’t stinted on gasoline when chasing demons halfway across the country, but he’d been low enough on food and rent money. She wondered how poor Wesley would have to be before he’d sell one of the antique swords or that Bavarian adze or any of those musty leatherbound books, and realized that he probably would eat the wallpaper first.

“Six figures.” Charles looked at the letter again. “That’s a hundred thousand a year minimum, right?”

“The amount is right there.” Fred pointed it out to Charles on the contract. “Four hundred thousand per annum.”

“What?” Gunn looked at it incredulously. “That’s thirty thousand a month – seven thousand a week… That’s….”

Fred nodded. “Kind of makes it look as if he should maybe have been paying himself a bit more than he was when he was running Angel Investigations, doesn’t it?”

“Kind of makes it look as if Wolfram & Hart wanted the inside scoop on Angel really badly.” Charles picked up a book that had been tossed carelessly onto the couch and examined it. “Do you think this is his spell book for that hocus pocus he pulled just before he went to the other dimension?”

“No, that one’s over there on the floor where he left it.” Fred picked it up and then examined the one Gunn was reading. “Oh, that’s what she meant about the ninth circle of hell – Dante’s Inferno. You know, I really don’t like that woman. When she’s not trying to have sex with Angel on Wesley’s desk, she’s comparing Wesley to Judas and trying to recruit him to her evil law firm just because he’s at a low ebb and might do something crazy just on account of being so –”

“Miserable and isolated and full of bitterness and self-loathing?” Charles sighed and tossed the book onto the couch. “Let’s not take him that one.”

 

Now she and Cordelia were spending a couple of hours with Wesley. He tired easily. He seemed to have had pretty much no sleep in that other dimension; some fitful dozing in between bouts of being tortured some more, as far as she could tell; so it was important that when he was awake he was encouraged to eat something and do some ‘normal stuff’ as Cordelia put it.

Today, Cordelia had decided that ‘normal stuff’ should include him eating all of the meal Fred had carried up to him on a tray in between looking through a lot of fashion magazines with her to help her choose a new dress for a networking dinner she was going to. Wesley smelt pretty bad but as it wasn’t his fault and Angel was the one not letting him take a shower, she and Cordy weren’t mentioning it and were both trying not to wrinkle their noses or anything.

It had felt at first wrong, like doing something forbidden, and then awkward, and then much less awkward, to just follow Cordy’s lead and do what she did. Cordy had grabbed the left side of the bed and patted the right to indicate that Fred should take that side, and Wesley had just had to find himself sandwiched in between them with a tray of soup and some chilled fruit and ice cream – all soft things that wouldn’t hurt his injured throat – on his lap and Fred helping him to eat it while Cordelia held open pages in front of him and said ‘What about that one?’ a lot.

Wesley had clearly found it really difficult to cope with them at first. He’d looked all deer in headlights and not been able to meet their eye, but Cordelia had just kind of ridden roughshod over all the awkwardness by not admitting it existed and after a few minutes he’d loosened up a little and even managed a few hoarse whispery derogatory comments about the more frou-frou dresses and it had been almost like old times.

“What about the dress you wore to the ballet…?” he asked at length, and that really did make him seem more normal, except for his voice being so painful-sounding still.

“Borrowed,” Cordelia explained.

“The knack is hiding the labels,” Fred confirmed.

“Can’t you just borrow another one?”

“This kind of gathering they check for labels.”

Fred leant across Wesley to examine the magazine page, pointing to something that looked classical in deep green. “I like that one.” Cordelia examined it with her head on one side and didn’t look as if she really hated it, which was good, but didn’t look as if she couldn’t live without it either.

“Don’t you already have a little black dress of some kind?” Wesley whisper-asked.

“You don’t get it, do you? For once I have the perfect excuse to buy a new dress and you’re just trying to ruin it for me. You’re supposed to be bringing a masculine opinion to the proceedings. Now, do your job and pick one.”

Wesley examined the page for a moment and then turned it over, looking at each dress closely, then he pointed to one. “That one.”

Cordelia gazed at it and then said, “Hmm, that’s scary. For a start it’s the most expensive dress there. For another, it’s the one I like best. For another, I wouldn’t be seen dead in it.”

Fred frowned. “Why not if you like it? Except maybe for only wanting to be seen alive in it?”

“Lilah Morgan has one just like it.”

“Oh.” Fred looked at Wesley who looked a little sheepish.

Cordelia said, “So, I hear she’s been trying to seduce you to the path of lawyer evil?”

Wesley shrugged. “I think she’s bored.”

“How bored?” Cordelia enquired. “Is she just trying to get you to work for her evil law firm or is she trying to get groiny with you?”

Wesley looked at her nervously. “How would I know the difference?”

“Does she offer you pots of cash and lots of benefits while looking you in the eye or looking you up and down? Is there any lip licking? Does she lean in, lower her voice, speak huskily, let you smell her perfume, and look at your mouth a lot while talking to you?” Cordelia demonstrated as she talked, dropping her voice to a husky seductive tone and flashing her cleavage. She straightened back up. “Anything like that? And are you going to eat that ice cream because it’s my favourite?”

“No, and yes. Or perhaps…yes and yes.” Wesley frowned. “I wasn’t really paying attention. If it’s normal seduction technique for a woman to act like the playground bully who keeps pulling your hair then perhaps she was trying to seduce me.”

“Wesley, why do you imagine nasty people in the playground pull your hair if not as a come on?” Cordelia demanded. “I used to pull Xander’s hair all the time and we ended up dating.”

Wesley looked appalled. “Buster Phelps pulled my hair in the playground in prep school for years.”

“Oh.” Fred was intrigued. “Did you date?”

“Certainly not.” He looked indignant and like the Wesley of old and then a shadow washed over his face and he pushed the tray away. “I’m sorry. I’m feeling a little tired.”

Cordelia looked at him anxiously but then tried to hide it behind a bright smile. “All the more ice cream for me then. Do you need to pee, because Groo is right outside the door and he would be honoured to be your bathroom escort for this meal break?”

Wesley blushed, darting a look at Fred as if he thought she didn’t know about men having to pee. “I can make it to the bathroom by myself now, thank you, Cordelia.”

Fred gathered up the tray while Cordelia gathered up the fashion magazines. Fred knew that Cordelia had told Wesley what she thought of what he’d done; not cruelly, just firmly, telling him all the reasons why he’d made the wrong choice and she was angry with him, but she hadn’t alluded to it since. Although there wasn’t the same warmth for Wesley from the others so far, Fred still hoped that people would get their old affection for him back eventually. He’d been so pounded in that other place and come back to them so close to looking dead, no resources left, all bruised and cut and hardly able to speak and not even able to stand up by himself, that she didn’t think anyone could go on being mad at him for long. 

Cordelia confirmed her feelings by abruptly leaning forward and kissing him on the forehead, stroking his hair back from a bruise as she straightened back up. “Get some sleep,” she told him gently. “I’ll be in to see you later, okay?”

He kept his head bowed for a moment and it took Fred a few seconds to realize that he couldn’t necessarily deal with people being kind to him right now. He had to swallow hard a few times before he could lift his head and his eyes were bright when he did so. At the sight of his expression, Cordelia’s eyes immediately filled with tears too and she hugged him gently. “Don’t go away again, Wes,” she said. “Promise me.”

“I may not be able to stay,” he managed hoarsely. “Angel….”

“Has a lot of anger and grief to work through, I know. But he can’t stay like this forever.”

“He does have eternity at his disposal,” croaked Wesley dryly.

“Well, I don’t.” Cordelia stroked his hair back again. “I have one short human lifetime and I don’t want to lose any more friends.”

“Amen,” said Fred quietly.

Wesley snatched a quick breath and then looked up at them, eyes gentle. “You’re both very sweet but I –”

“Really do need to rest now. I know.” Cordelia rose to her feet. “Angel will come round,” she promised him. “You were his best friend. I know he misses you too.”

“So does Charles,” Fred said quickly. “He only doesn’t come in to see you more because –” She broke off because the truth was she didn’t know why Charles kept avoiding Wesley; would go out, like this morning, and buy him some home-made ice cream for his bruised throat but wouldn’t bring it up himself, it always being Lorne or Groo who dropped in to see if Wesley needed a hand that a woman couldn’t supply.

“I know why Gunn doesn’t want to see me right now.” Wesley looked down at his bruised chest. “It’s fine. I understand. I have a little trouble seeing him and Angel myself.”

“Well, you’re going to get over that,” Cordelia promised him. “This is a different world and I think we should decide it’s a new start as well. You could have died in that place. You didn’t. No thanks to you, of course, and your dumbass go-it-alone tactics…”

“Cordelia…” Fred murmured quickly, knowing once Cordelia got on that hobby horse she’d be riding it around for hours.

“Get some rest, Wes.” Cordelia carried the magazines to the door and gazed back at him; Fred looked at him as well and thought how fragile he looked, all bruised and thin and so tired. Cordelia held his gaze. “A wise man once told me that things are going to get better for all of us, and you know what? I think he was right.”

Wesley looked very touched for a moment and then rallied to say: “On the grounds that they could hardly get worse?”

Cordelia gave him a beaming smile. “Exactly!”

Fred also smiled at him, but more gently. “Now, don’t you feel better?”

Wesley’s smile was so faint and frail it hurt her inside but at least it was there and there was something other than sorrow lighting his face. “Indubitably.”

And then they left him to sleep and Fred found that she and Cordy were both closing the door very quietly and then leaning back against it before looking at one another sideways. 

“Those big lunks are going to be friends again if I have to kill them all in the process,” Cordy observed.

Fred nodded. “Let me know if you want a hand with that.” As she followed Cordelia downstairs, Wesley’s tray held carefully so as not to drop it and wake him up again, for the first time she thought perhaps it might be possible for there to be an end to this strange enemy within feeling and just get back to Wesley being their friend. Unfortunately, like so many things, it all depended on Angel, and he was as unpredictable right now as…well, a vampire who’d lost his only child to a hell dimension….

***

Gunn kept finding himself drawn to the basement. He couldn’t explain it, and he knew it was illogical. Maybe it was because he hadn’t been around in Sunnydale that time when they’d met a Willow from a different dimension; sure, if he’d seen that, maybe, that redheaded kooky sweet little chick turned into some skuzzy vamp super villain, he could have bought the whole parallel worlds thing, but right now he was having to rely more on what seemed possible, and a hitch in the timeline felt more likely to him.

He’d seen the evidence all over Wesley; there was no question it had happened. And although he hadn’t been able to smell himself in the way Angel had – knowing exactly who it was that had scent marked all over Wesley like that – he’d certainly smelt sex all over him, and no one taking a look at those cuts and bruises and rope burns and brands all over him could think it was consensual. Maybe Wes had turned out to be not as much of an open book to the rest of them as they’d thought; maybe after all those nice surprises about Wes being a lot more use in a fight and as a leader than Gunn had ever thought, there had come the bad surprise of him being secretive and arrogant and stupid and a damned baby-napper, but he didn’t believe Wesley had been having this whole secret life going as some psycho sadist’s willing bitch. 

He hadn’t been up there for a couple of days, not to see Wesley. Lorne was giving Wes medicine and Cordy and Fred were given him the TLC he certainly needed. He’d done his share on that first day when Wes couldn’t make it to the bathroom without help and as he wasn’t wearing any clothes it needed to be a male doing the helping. It had been okay at first. He’d helped him up, holding him carefully under the arms, not looking down, one arm around his back, knowing where all the worst cuts were because he’d helped bandage them, so doing his best not to hurt him as he helped him along, and then as they’d reached the bathroom, Wesley had slipped on the linoleum and he’d had to grab him fast. He’d caught him by the hips before he took a header into the bath and that’s when he’d seen the way his fingers were fitting perfectly over those deep purple-black bruises that curled around his hipbones. He’d only had an instant to stare at them in horror, this proof that his hands had been the ones holding him for so hard and so long while he was pounded against his will, and then Wesley had yanked away from him so fast that he’d slammed sideways into the tiled wall beside the sink, twisting around at once to have his back against the wall, chest heaving; and that was when Gunn had seen the panic in his blue eyes; imminent roadkill on the freeway at night with that sixteen wheeler bearing down on him and nowhere to run. 

That was when he knew that he had done this to him. Charles Gunn. His damned fingerprints had proven it. And the panic in those blue eyes had been like a skewer to the guts because up until then he’d thought of the Wesley in that basement – when he thought of that scenario at all – and he’d been trying to think of it as little as possible – as quiet and bitter and untouchable, gritting his teeth when they hurt him, maybe coming up with a snappy put down that got him slapped around but proved that he was still intact. That was when he’d realized that Wesley had been dragged down there struggling and scared and not knowing what to expect. Because if one just stopped thinking about enigmatic throat-slashed baby-napper Wesley, one had to think about that guy who’d been so shocked when that bullet hit him, who was a bit of a dork, who had that silly grin, who fell asleep over his books, who was vulnerable and smart and a little bit innocent. That was also the guy who had tried to fix something he’d done wrong and had walked into a nightmare he had no preparation to deal with. 

The double blow had hit Gunn so hard he’d staggered to the sink and vomited. How the hell did you deal with being beaten and tortured and…and that other thing…for days and days by two people wearing the faces of your closest friends anyway? Ex-friends. He had to keep reminding himself that they were ex-friends now. Gunn had run the water into the sink and then looked across at Wesley, who was still pressed against the wall, breathing quickly as he tried to get through the spike of panic, but looking at him with compassionate eyes as he realized that this Gunn wasn’t going to hurt him and that this Gunn was as freaked out as he was.

Gunn had walked out of the bathroom, asked Groo if he would go and help Wesley, and then basically run away. He hadn’t been back since.

And now he was in the basement again. Looking for clues as to how it could have happened. Looking for blood on the walls, he supposed. His fingers had fit into those bruises on Wesley’s hips and that meant it had been his fingers around the long slender neck of that other Fred as he throttled her slowly, choking her screams to gasps. Maybe not here, but it was here where Wesley had been found, outside this hotel in this dimension. He crouched down in the corner, wondering if there were chains here he’d never noticed, if he was going to find a stain that was Fred’s life’s blood. If it was a slip in time, not place that had happened….

“‘It didn’t happen here’.”

He looked up and there was Angel, sitting in the darkness, shrouded in shadows, a beaker of blood in his hand, looking broody and dangerous and…pretty much like a vampire.

Gunn straightened up. “We sure about that?”

“As sure as we can be.” Angel put down the beaker of blood. “It wasn’t you, Gunn.”

“You’re the one who said it was. That it smelt like me, and you know what? Looked like my initial burned into Wesley’s skin. And my fingers fit –”

“The bruises on his body. I know. So do mine.” As Gunn shuddered Angel sighed. “Except it wasn’t us and it was even less you than me.” 

Gunn looked around for somewhere to sit and found an overstuffed armchair that had seen better days. Angel had a nice room upstairs and this place was something of a pit but he was spending more and more time down here recently. Gunn guessed he wasn’t the only one with avoidance issues when it came to Wesley. He sat down. “How do you figure that?”

“Because you weren’t there, not Charles Gunn. What did that to Wesley and to that other Cordelia and Fred, that wasn’t you, it was the thing that had already killed you. The _other_ thing that had already killed you, I should say, because the first thing that killed you was me.”

“Not you.” Gunn sat up straighter. “Angelus.”

“Except I’ve been Angelus, and as well as him having all the memories of the human I used to be, I have all the memories of the vampire he still is. So, I know how it feels to hold a screaming woman down and rape her to death. Maybe not Fred and Cordy, but plenty of others. In any dimension I would have been the one giving you the good ideas about all the fun ways to hurt people.”

“Didn’t you tell me once that Darla told you some darkness was innate? That you could only become the vampire your human self could become? I followed you here, didn’t I? I’m working for a vampire with a rap sheet as long as a greyhound bus. Maybe that means I’d follow you anywhere, not because you’re my friend or even because I believe in you the way Wes always did, but because there’s something in that darkness of yours that’s in me, too.”

“If Wes had believed in me he would never have stolen Connor.” Angel gazed into the darkness and when he said that, with that look on his face, Gunn felt a kind of shiver inside, felt as if he’d liked to have a crucifix to hand. And then Angel looked directly at him and what he saw in his eyes was…hurt. “He told me that he knew I wasn’t a demon. That I was a man. He always acted as if he didn’t think I was responsible for what Angelus had done.”

“He doesn’t.” Gunn wondered that Angel still didn’t know that.

“But he thought I was capable of hurting my baby son.”

“No, he thought _Angelus_ was capable of hurting your baby son. And, newsflash, Angel, we both know he was, that he is. If Angelus came back, who do you think he’d want to hurt the most? Who does he hate the most? You. What do you – did you – love the most? Connor. Wolfram  & Hart had spiked your blood. How do we know there isn’t some kind of powder out there that steals away the soul a little bit day by day? They want you dark, not dead, remember, and they were planning to cut up Connor anyway, and they never gave a damn about the rest of us. They had nothing to lose in making you your demon again.”

Angel picked up his beaker of blood again. “If he really thought it was Angelus who was going to hurt Connor and not me, why didn’t he come to me and warn me that there was a prophecy that Angelus was going to re-emerge? We could have bought a cage. Brought in some magical help. Tried to work out how it was going to happen and find a way to avoid it.”

Gunn shrugged. “Or he could have taken the baby away while he figured out what to do next, hoping that would at least stop Connor dying, if nothing else.”

Angel looked at him with those hurt eyes again. “You think he was right?”

Gunn shifted uncomfortably. “No, of course, I don’t. He acted like an idiot. He should have talked to the rest of us even if he didn’t think he could talk to you. He should never have gone to see Holtz – that was just playing into the guy’s hands, giving him a chance to scope Wes out, work out what kind of man he was, come up with a strategy to trick him. And if he was going to steal Connor, he should have made sure he had some back up. How far did he think he was going to get in an SUV with a revolver anyway? Half the vamp cults in the city were after that kid. There was no way Wes could keep him safe.”

“I’m going to make him tell me what was different in that other world.”

Gunn wondered if now was the time and the place to tell Angel that he wasn’t going to let Angel hurt Wesley, and then realized that the vampire already knew that. “What makes you so sure it really was another world where it happened? He was here.”

Angel shook his head. “There’s none of Wesley’s blood in this basement, I’ve checked, and if it were in the future, if Cordelia and Fred were still in danger, he would have told us that. He only stayed here to make sure they were still alive, even though he knew it was irrational, he just had to do it. He’d do or say anything that was necessary to keep them alive. If he really thought we were a threat to them, he would have got Groo to take them somewhere else.”

“Are we sure that isn’t a good idea?” Gunn enquired. “Just to be on the safe side?”

“If you really want to be on the safe side, Gunn, you could always stake me.”

Gunn snatched a breath because it wasn’t as if it hadn’t occurred to him.

Angel continued quietly: “I know what you think. That you’re working with a ticking time bomb every day, and it’s true. That’s why I have to know that you all know that. And that you’ll act accordingly.”

“What, like believing it’s possible for you to turn into Angelus and kill the baby son you love so much?”

Angel’s turn to snatch a breath even though he didn’t actually need it. “I don’t blame Wesley for taking my son. I blame Wesley for losing him.”

“That wasn’t what you were screaming at him in the hospital.”

“I didn’t try to smother him because he hurt my feelings, Gunn.”

Gunn sighed and ran a hand over his head. It felt like his palm touching his warm smooth skin, there was that familiar slight sandpapery friction of his callused palm brushing his freshly-shaven scalp. But there were those bruises on Wesley’s hips. “Maybe someone with a lot more magical mojo than us needs to go over that spell Wes cast. Check out the specifics.”

“I’ve already faxed it to Giles and Willow. Asked them to take a look at it.”

“You can use a fax machine?”

“Well, no, okay, I got Cordy to do it.”

“What did they say?”

“They’re still checking but Giles said that Wesley is probably the best source for translating that language. Apparently he got straight As in demonic linguistics from the age of thirteen up. Probably because Daddy used to lock him under the stairs if he got anything from an A minus down.”

“Giles said that?” Gunn looked up in shock.

“Wesley said that, or the demon who was reading his mind said it for him. ‘All those hours locked under the stairs and you’re still not good enough. Not good enough for Daddy. Not good enough for the Council.’ ”

Gunn shook his head. “Man, Wes needs therapy.”

“The Angelus on the tape said the other Wesley is beyond therapy. No way back for him. Ours is only still with us because he didn’t see what was done to Cordy and Fred.”

‘Ours’. Gunn noticed that and wondered if Angel had too. If it was a slip of the tongue or the beginning of a thaw. “When I think about that – what we could do to them – I think I should stake you _and_ me, just to be on the safe side.”

Angel said quietly, “It’s one way to be sure. Not you. You can’t go evil unless I turn you. And I can’t turn you if I’m not here to do it.”

Gunn stared at him in disbelief. “You’re not serious? Angel, that’s crazy. We all know the risks. We’ll be on our guard.”

Angel got to his feet. “Wesley has to tell me what was different in that world. He has to tell me what made that other Angel become Angelus again. On the tape – the Angelus there, he talked about the Wesley from that dimension a lot, and he said he was sweet and innocent and he trusted Angel completely. He said it was always more fun when the victim you were torturing trusted you. If that Wesley trusted that Angel so completely then what sparked him turning into Angelus?”

“You think it was him taking Connor?” Gunn frowned. “You think losing Connor turned him into Angelus?”

Angel gazed into the shadows and there was that look again, the vampire look. “Sometimes it feels as if there isn’t that much between us. When they turned Darla right in front of me. When they damned her all over again. And when I lost Connor and I saw Wesley in that hospital bed…I think he nearly came back. Or else there is a darkness in me that is so close to being him it almost doesn’t matter.”

“It matters.” Gunn strode over to where Angel was standing. “Angel, let’s be clear about this. You doing bad things and Angelus doing bad things is the difference between someone with a conscience and a soul giving into some kind of darkness that’s maybe in all of us, and you becoming something that is entirely evil and without remorse. It’s the difference between trying to smother Wesley with a pillow and chaining him up in a basement so you can torture him for fun; it’s the difference between firing Cordy and raping her to death. Don’t ever tell me it doesn’t matter or I really will think about that stake first and ask questions later idea.”

As Angel headed for the stairs, Gunn called after him, “Where are you going?”

“To talk to Wesley.”

Gunn watched Angel walk up the basement stairs and thought how much he ought to go with him to make sure it was the reasonable Angel who went into that bedroom and not the pillow wielding one; and how much he didn’t think anything could make him go back into a room with Wesley while he still had those bruises on his hips.

***

The phone was ringing as Angel reached the lobby. Lorne picked it up, saying cheerfully, “Angel Investigations. We help the helpless. How can I help you, cherub?”

Angel wondered in passing if Lorne called everyone who phoned them ‘cherub’ and if so how much business it was costing them.

Lorne glanced across at him. “Yes, he’s here. Mood…? Kind of auto-brood for the most part. With occasional segues into gloomy or morbid.”

Angel took the phone from him. “Thank you, Lorne.”

“It’s Giles. Play nice.”

Angel waited pointedly for Lorne to move away and then put the phone to his ear. “Angel here.”

It was always strange to hear Giles’s voice; he was part of the life that was Buffy; the life he’d had to give up. He was also one of the few people left alive whom Angelus had tortured.

“How’s Wesley?”

Those clipped tones, so dispassionate and British. 

No one else would have asked him that straight out of the starting gate. Angel got that Giles sympathized with what Wesley had done; would probably have done the same thing; that he decidedly did not approve of Angel bearing a grudge because a man with his best interests at heart had tried to save his child. Fine. In Giles World, Angel should never have tried to suffocate Wesley, and was being immature or unreasonable in continuing to bear enmity towards him. And there reasoned a guy who had never had a child gaze up at him from the comfort of a crib and who he’d promised he would always keep safe, only to have to watch him whisked into a hell dimension thanks to the intervention of a betraying friend.

Angel gritted his teeth. “As well as can be expected.”

“And how well is that?” Oh, Giles really wasn’t going to let it go, was he?

Angel could feel his brow furrowing with anger; knew Lorne was watching him from a safe distance. “Well, how well did you feel after Angelus tortured you, Giles?”

A silence that was possibly a little shocked. Giles took a moment to recover before saying quietly: “I had friends to take care of me after that unpleasant event.”

“Wesley’s being taken care of.”

“Yes, I can hear you’re welling up with compassion for him.”

Angel counted to ten before managing to say evenly: “Did you get a chance to look at the spell yet?”

“That’s mostly why I’m calling. But first we need to get something else out of the way. If you have no further use for Wesley in Los Angeles then I think it would be better if he came back to England with me. Far too many years have been invested in his training for him to be wasting his time in a country that doesn’t want him.”

“I’m not my Watcher’s keeper, Giles. Wesley can walk out of this hotel as soon as he can…walk out of this hotel.”

“And how soon is that likely to be?”

Angel felt his anger beginning to wind down; the way it kept doing recently, and he almost missed that simplicity of rage; when everything was a white hot blade in his mind. Apart from anything else it did at least help to dull the pain of his grief over Connor. “A few weeks, I would think. He’s in pretty rough shape.”

“Perhaps I should come and fetch him?”

Angel thought about Giles’s car. Thought of it outside the Hyperion. Wesley in the passenger seat; suitcase in the trunk. Giles driving away and taking that particular problem with him. In some ways it was very appealing. Wesley would be out of his hair and Wesley would also be safe from his wrath. And it would probably be good for Wesley to get away from this place of failure and pain as well. He had escaped to the scene of the crime when he’d got away from that other dimension. At the same time he felt a pang; because that would be it then, the story over, and perhaps there was a part of him that wanted them to go through this, come out of the other side. He had thought things were over between them, that they would never see each other again and if they did his only response would be to snap Wesley’s neck. But now they had been forced to interact again, he could see a time when he might be able to, if not forgive him, at least forget about it for a few hours; find some method of co-existing.

He stalled. “Wolfram & Hart offered him a job.”

“What? Did he take it?”

“No. But if they offered him a job it makes sense someone else might. He could start up again by himself, hire some people who don’t have a problem with what he did. Which would be most of the population of this city. He’s been here for three years now. He has a life here.”

Giles was crisp. “You were his life there, Angel. Just as Buffy was my life in Sunnydale. Wesley needs a cause. You were it. As you are no longer it, he needs to find another one, and for the sake of his mental health I think it would be a better idea if he found it in England.”

Angel could not have said why he liked the sound of this proposal so much less with each passing minute, but he did. “Wesley isn’t who you think he is.”

“No, I was forgetting he’s the evil monster who tried to save your son from being killed and who nearly lost his own life in the process.”

Angel gritted his teeth, knowing there was no way to explain how much it hurt that Wesley had looked him in the eye and lied to him, that all his caring words and support had meant nothing at all. He had trusted Wesley in a way he had never trusted anyone and that was how he’d repaid him. “I mean he’s not the guy you knew. Not…” Helpless. Useless. Pompous. “He’s much more capable.”

“Very capable of getting himself almost killed by you and then brutally tortured in an alternate dimension, as I understand it. He’s a brilliant researcher. Perhaps field work isn’t his forte.”

That stung him and he had no idea why it should but it did. “Wes is good in the field. He can handle himself.”

“Isn’t it all academic now anyway? The point is, you don’t want him, the Council do.”

“The Council fired him,” Angel retorted. 

Giles was still crisp. “What do you care?”

“I don’t,” Angel said quickly. “I’m just acknowledging that whatever my personal gripe with Wes might be, he’s an asset in the battle against evil and in my opinion if you take him back to England you’re not using him as effectively as if you let him stay here.”

“So noted. Is there possibility of me being able to talk to him myself?” 

Angel looked at the phone. “Not yet. We don’t have phone points in the rooms. It’s an old hotel. He can’t get downstairs yet.”

“And none of you possess a mobile phone of any kind?”

He hated that withering tone Giles used sometimes. No wonder the Irish had never liked the English. “Yes. Okay. I could lend him my cellphone. I’ll tell him you want to talk to him. Just leave it a few days, will you?”

“Why?”

He nearly told him, just spelled it out to stuffy, pompous Giles exactly why talking was a problem for Wesley at the moment. Then he remembered torturing the man; snapping the neck of the woman he loved, and the old familiar guilt kicked in. He sighed. “His throat was…bruised. It still hurts him to talk. Lorne’s been giving him some treatment for it. A couple of days it should be easier for him to talk. I’m not sure you’re going to be able to hear him on a cellphone anyway, he can pretty much only whisper right now.”

“Perhaps I should come up to LA?”

Angel decided to stop being defensive and snappy and look at it from Giles’ point of view. “He’s in no danger from me, Giles, but if you want to visit him you’re welcome to stay here. There are plenty of rooms. Just leave it a few days until he’s had a chance to recover from the worst of it. He’s not really up to seeing anyone right now.”

There was a pause before Giles said, “How bad was it, Angel?”

“Pretty bad.” He didn’t know how to put it. Wesley wouldn’t want Giles or anyone else to know. Giles wouldn’t want to know either. “He’s lucky to be alive.”

“I still don’t understand why he isn’t in a hospital.”

“Because he’s better off here.” Angel waited for a moment and then said again, “What about the spell?”

There was another pause while Giles obviously thought about whether or not to keep arguing for Wesley to be admitted to a hospital but then let it go. Angel suspected he was only letting it go because he was planning to come up here before too long and see how Wesley was for himself. To Giles he presumed Wesley was now the equivalent of a prisoner trapped behind enemy lines. Making Angel the enemy. He didn’t know if that was a human thing, a Watcher thing, or an English thing. When Giles spoke his voice was matter-of-fact, as if they weren’t also having this verbal tussle about What To Do About Wesley. “Well, it’s as you suspected – very dark magic indeed, the kind that he really shouldn’t have been dabbling in.”

“Wes doesn’t ‘dabble’. He knows what he’s doing.” And he had no idea where that came from; the same defensive unreasonable place that his other comments had come from, out of the blue, because who cared what Giles thought of Wesley these days when he was nothing to Angel any more? 

It obviously surprised Giles almost as much as it surprised him. There was a longer pause before Giles said, quite gently, “I’m sure he does. But so do I and this is still not a spell I would have any business casting. No one would. It’s fraught with danger. Could cause irreparable damage to the fabric between our reality and a parallel one and runs a serious risk for whoever casts it. It’s magic used by vengeance demons and warlocks, Angel, not Watchers and wizards. Do you have any idea how he ended the spell and found his way back to this reality?”

Angel looked across at Lorne who was hovering shamelessly within earshot. “Did you ask him?”

“Tell Giles it was a geshurnik nut.”

Angel dutifully repeated the information only to have Giles hiss “The bloody fool!” down the phone at him.

“Not recommended by the Watchers’ Council?” Angel essayed.

“Not recommended by anyone human who doesn’t have a death wish. Those things are poisonous to one in fifty – some reports say one in thirty. I need to do some more research, Angel, but so far Willow and I are finding a few things that are worrying.”

“Worrying how exactly?” Angel looked at the pentagram on the floor of his hotel. He probably knew better than anyone how dangerous dark magic didn’t look so bad when you were desperate. He just hadn’t realized how desperate Wesley had been feeling.

“It’s very difficult to punch your way into another reality. It takes a spell of extraordinary power and, as I said before, it’s not recommended that anyone attempt it. A spell like that, however, leaves a kind of mystical vapour trail, and there’s a chance that someone could, with far greater ease, follow it back to this reality. Essentially, a doorway was created when Wesley cast that spell and although he has been pulled back through it and the door is now closed, it still exists where no doorway existed before. Willow and I want to look into ways of permanently sealing that doorway so nothing from the alternate reality can find its way into this one.”

“Sounds like a good idea.” Angel looked up the stairs. “This nut thing – how does it work?”

“It’s an antidote to a spell. It will undo any spell someone has cast but it has to be ingested by the spell caster. Once the outer husk dissolves and the core of the nut is exposed, the spell is undone.”

“But it’s poisonous?”

“It can be. Taking one as a spell antidote is a little like playing Russian roulette.”

“But if Wesley hadn’t done that he would never have been able to get back. He wasn’t free to cast any spells. He was tied up in the basement of the Hyperion being –” Angel broke off. “Giles, I need to go. Let me know what you find out.”

“I’ll be sure to keep you informed.” There was a pause before Giles added smoothly, “I know how important that is to you.”

Grimacing, Angel replaced the receiver. He supposed there had to be someone out there who was entirely on Wesley’s side and not at all on his and it made sense it would be Giles. Then he was heading up the stairs two at a time.

There was no Groo in the corridor. Perhaps they’d decided Angel was no longer a threat or perhaps Groo was just taking a break. Angel didn’t care. It just made it easier. He didn’t bother knocking, it was his hotel and Wesley was here on sufferance, being fed and kept warm with food and heating paid for out of his pocket; he figured that was enough civility being shown to someone who had stolen his son. 

Wesley started as Angel appeared in the doorway; easing himself into a sitting position and waiting there, silently, pressed against the pillows, for Angel to do or say his worst.

Angel went on into the room and closed the door behind him. “That nut thing you took? Why that way of reversing the spell and not a book?”

Wesley blinked at him in confusion. “What?”

“Were you trying to kill yourself or did you know what was waiting for you?”

“No. On both counts.” That hoarse whisper of his made him sound like someone else but when he didn’t make the effort to come across as the new tough Wesley who didn’t care any more what Angel thought of him, he looked just tired and bruised and remarkably like the old Wesley.

“So, why no spell book?”

“I wasn’t sure I’d be in a position to cast a spell and if by some chance that reality turned out to be worse than our own and was one I had somehow created I wanted to be sure it would be undone.” Wesley put a hand to his throat and Angel found himself automatically crossing to the bed and pouring him a glass of water. He handed it to him.

“So, is it undone?”

“Thank you. No. I don’t think I created that reality. I think I accessed it. Apparently parallel universes aren’t just theoretically possible.” Wesley sipped carefully and then looked around for somewhere to put the water.

Angel took the glass from him and put it back on the bedside table. “Still don’t understand why you didn’t think you’d be able to cast a spell if you thought you were coming to an earlier version of this world. What was the problem?”

“The spell not taking me back far enough and you killing me for stealing your son.” Wesley looked up at him defiantly. “But even if I were dead, the nut would have rotted down inside me eventually and the spell would have been undone.”

That hit him harder than he’d expected. He rocked a little and took a step back. “Oh. I see.” He didn’t sit on the bed this time, turning around to find a chair, giving Wesley a few feet of personal space. “Giles wants to take you back to England with him. Deprogram you as a vampire groupie and retrain you as a Watcher.”

Wesley moistened his lips. “I wasn’t aware that being your groupie was part of the job description.”

Angel waved a hand. “Figure of speech.”

“I’d prefer a different one.”

Angel looked him in the eyes. “You’re not in a position to have preferences, Wesley.” It didn’t feel anything like as good as he’d hoped when the man shivered. Angel sighed. “I need to know what was different there from here. I need to know why I turned back into Angelus in that world.”

“I told you, we’re already past that point here.”

Angel gazed at him intently. “Why don’t you want to tell me?”

“Because I don’t like being called a liar.”

Angel gritted his teeth. “You are a liar, Wesley. You told me you were taking my son home with you for the night so he could play in the park when you had no intention of ever bringing him back here.”

Wesley faced him unflinchingly. “Would you mind people calling you a serial killer if you hadn’t, in fact, been one in the past?”

“Okay, I won’t call you a liar. Just tell me.”

“The Wesley in that dimension didn’t take Connor. He told Angel about the prophecy. He thought they could work it out together. The Angel in that reality lost his soul and became evil but disguised it at first. Well enough to fool the Wesley in that reality anyway. He killed Lorne – who overheard him humming. Turned Gunn. Took the other three prisoner. Killed Connor. With the now soulless vampire Gunn’s assistance he murdered Cordelia and Fred, and kept the Wesley from that reality a prisoner in the basement – where he was found and rescued by Giles, who had become concerned when Fred didn’t answer any of her daily emails from Willow – apparently in that reality the two were in regular contact. End of story until I arrived. The rest you know.” Wesley looked around for the water and Angel handed it to him, waiting while Wesley drank, wincing as he swallowed.

Angel shook his head in confusion as he put the glass back down on the table. “It doesn’t make any sense. What triggered me becoming Angelus?”

Wesley looked up at him, eyes a little less bloodshot now, and the left one opening better, but the bruises and shadows underneath them still noticeable. “It wasn’t ‘you’, Angel. It was another version of you in another version of reality.”

Angel abruptly put his hands on the bed head each side of Wesley, making the man press back against the wall as Angel gazed into his eyes. With his mouth only a few inches from Wesley’s, Angel breathed: “So, tell me the truth, Wes. Right now what are you afraid I’m going to do to you? Suffocate you with a pillow or make you bite it?”

Wesley faltered, face paling under his stubble and bruises. He licked his lips and then said hoarsely, “I’m not sure.”

Angel straightened back up and took a step back; hearing the thumping of Wesley’s heart from here and not enjoying playing the bully with this beaten up Wesley anything like as much as he would have thought he would a few days before. “Okay, so let’s drop the bullshit about it not being me. Why didn’t you taking my son turn me into Angelus but you not taking my son made me lose my soul?”

Wesley gazed up at him, swallowing painfully, voice that unfamiliar whispery rasp: “Perhaps because my taking Connor didn’t exactly make you happy.”

Angel thought back to how he’d been feeling the night before that terrible day; talking to Wesley in his bedroom, trying to express just how much Connor meant to him, how joyful it made him to have this gift from the powers, like a form of forgiveness. How perilously close to perfect happiness had he been before his world had gone to hell in a hand basket?

He looked across at Wesley again, really looked at him this time, and couldn’t help seeing the guy who had been his friend, who he’d pulled out of that burning basement, who had been there for him so many times in the past. “What were you planning to do? If the spell had worked the way you hoped and had taken you back to a time before you took Connor, what were you going to do?”

“Tell you.” Wesley looked down at the coverlet as if it was the most fascinating thing in the world, his voice that damaged whisper. “Tell you about going to see Holtz and translating the prophecy. Try to come up with a solution between us.”

Angel thought back to Wesley smiling at him from the bed, talking nonsense, looking so wrecked and so happy at the same time. “You almost told me in this reality.”

Wesley nodded. “Yes. Then the earthquake hit. It was the first of the portents the Loa had told me would let me know when you were going to kill Connor. Earthquake. Fire. Blood.”

Angel remembered the room shaking, the gas oven exploding, the beam falling and Connor trapped on the wrong side of it. Wesley just standing there in shock. Yanking him out of the room to safety and then Wesley gazing up at him as if he’d never seen him before in his life while Angel held Connor tightly and thought how close he’d come to losing him but hadn’t, and how maybe nothing was ever going to be able to hurt Connor, maybe he was still protected by the Powers.

He started to pace around the room, hating the unfairness of it. “Maybe you were right. Maybe he wasn’t meant to be born. Or maybe what I thought was a reward was actually a punishment. Maybe in every single reality I lose him. Maybe all he was ever meant to do was make me feel this bad.”

He turned to find Wesley watching him warily from the bed. “I don’t think Connor was a punishment, Angel.”

“Well, what else was he? You took him from me, Wes. You were my friend and I trusted you and you stole my son. How could that happen unless I was only meant to have Connor for long enough for me to suffer like this when I lost him?”

“I think life is complicated but we all have free will. There were a number of choices I could have made at various points along the path that led to Connor being taken in Quor’Toth. It just happened that the one I chose ended there.”

“Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered what choice you made, it would still have ended there, did you ever think about that? I killed Holtz’s son. I killed so many men’s sons. I thought I was – not forgiven, never forgiven, but I thought I was being given some time to try to make amends. I thought Buffy was the proof that I could one day make up for what I’d done, and it cost me my soul. I thought Connor was here for a good reason; something wonderful to make up for all the horror Darla and I caused. Something to help make the world a better place.” Angel turned to look at Wesley, still feeling as if the man on the bed could have some of the answers. “But Buffy sent me to hell and you sent my son there. Maybe there is a God, after all, and he hates me.”

“Angel, there isn’t and He doesn’t.” Wesley’s blue eyes were unexpectedly filled with compassion for him; just the way Wesley had always looked at him in the past while trying to make him feel better.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Angel pointed out to him.

“I had no idea making sense was on the agenda for this conversation.”

Angel opened his mouth to retort and realized with a stab of painful disloyalty to Connor that he liked to see that half-smile on Wesley’s face; it made him look more like himself despite the raspy whisper of a voice. “You know there’s a good reason why we Irish never liked you English. You were always namby-pamby land-grabbing pompous little asses.”

“Why would a just god make your infant son pay for the crimes committed by the demon who stole your body?”

“Who said anything about a just god? I was raised as a Catholic, remember? The only God I ever heard tell of handed out punishment unto the seventh generation.”

“I think that was a metaphor for syphilis actually, Angel.”

He looked and sounded like Wes when he spoke like that. Angel couldn’t help a part of him thawing, the old affection he had for this man constantly threatening to break through. “You were the one who told me there was a design and that I had my place in it.”

“I didn’t mean that your place in it was to suffer for all eternity. To have things you wanted more than anything offered to you only to be withdrawn again.”

“But isn’t that what my life is? Whistler showed me Buffy. Said I could help her. Said that was my purpose. I looked at her and I felt something in my soul – a recognition. I knew I was meant to help her, to be with her. Have you seen much of me being with her in the past few years? And the same with Connor. I held him in my arms and I knew there was something better and greater than me that made my life worthwhile after all. And now he’s dead and what was the point in him ever being here if it wasn’t to punish me?”

“I made a mistake.” Wesley gazed up at him. “Connor is dead because I made a mistake.”

“But it was the same in that other world. You made a different choice there but the end result was even worse. You believe in higher powers, don’t you, Wes? You must do or you wouldn’t believe in prophecies. They send Cordy the visions. They pretend to be helping me find redemption. Maybe they’re not. Maybe they’re just part of making me suffer.”

“Maybe you’re paranoid,” Wesley countered.

“Maybe you can’t read a message when it’s right in front of you in letters of holy fire. You tried to change what you’d done, to undo me losing my son – do you want to talk about how that turned out?” Wesley flinched and Angel sat down on the bed, sighing. “Wes, if the Powers didn’t want you to try to change what happened to Connor how much clearer a message could they have sent you? Or do you think being chained up in a basement for six days as the plaything of two sadistic vampires is a good conduct prize?”

“I used the wrong spell. Or if you want to be Catholic about it, I’m not allowed to change what I did because I have to live with it as part of my penance.”

Angel reached across and moved the sheet down so he could look at Wesley’s body; the fading bites and bruises discolouring his skin, the now rather grubby bandages. He thought about the videotape he’d watched and closed his eyes. “Wes, I believe in paying for past sins. I’m still Catholic enough for that. I can’t forgive you for taking Connor, but I can tell you that I think you’ve suffered way more than enough for doing it. And I don’t ever want you trying that spell again.”

“I wouldn’t try that spell again.”

“Or any other spell to try and change what happened. You’re only alive this time by the skin of your teeth.”

“And Connor is dead.”

“Giles says you could have opened a door into another reality. What if you screw up and you end up getting this world sucked into a hell dimension? I used some dark magic to try to get him back and now so have you. We can’t do it again.” He gazed into Wesley’s face intently. “He was my son and I loved him more than anything in the world but he’s gone now. I live with mistakes I can’t ever fix every day. You’re going to have to do the same. I killed a lot of babies in my time. You’ve only killed one so far. If I can try to make amends for all the ones I killed; you can try to make amends for the one you killed. And I don’t mean the grand gesture that gets you sucked into another reality and tortured half to death, I mean getting up every morning and trying to do some good.”

Wesley swallowed hard and dropped his gaze and it was so hard not to feel those old emotions – protective and compassionate. “I could be lying,” Wesley said hoarsely. “About what happened in that other dimension.”

“You don’t tell lies to help yourself. You never have.” Angel got to his feet. “Do you want that shower?”

Wesley looked up at him in surprise. “Yes, please.”

“I’ll get some fresh bandages afterwards. I should change these sheets too.” Angel was almost glad to have something to do that wasn’t just about anger and grief. “Maybe a bath would be easier. You can sit down in it. I’ll run you a bath.”

Wesley kept gazing up at him in confusion. Angel thought about his baby and that empty cot. Thought about that videotape. Thought about Wesley in that hospital bed and the pillow pressing down on his face. “It’s going to take a while,” he said quietly, not looking at him as he moved towards the bathroom. “You know that, right?”

“Yes.” Wesley pulled the sheet up a little higher. “I know.”

Angel wondered if Wesley thought he meant running the bath or repairing their friendship – supposing it was possible to repair something so utterly wrecked. 

He wondered which one he meant himself.

 

On some level he supposed this was another power trip; and the evidence that he liked power trips was what he was examining right now. Wesley couldn’t really hide it – or anything else – from him at the moment. But he wasn’t exactly getting off on the proof that without a soul he was an inventive sadist, or on this cataloguing of Wesley’s wounds. 

Like the way Wesley’s chest hair was missing. It had been sparse before but there had been some of it; now there were shiny red patches of skin and those small circular burns, they went well with the smaller burns, the marks from lighted cigarette ends being held against the skin and the marks where they’d spread-eagled Wesley supine on that stinking mattress in the basement and dropped lighted matches on him. And on some level what had those two been except nasty little boys revelling in their own strength? It didn’t exactly take a lot of mental agility to hold down someone weaker and hurt him. No doubt Angelus would claim it was an art form – torture without maiming; the maximum pain for the minimum serious injury. He’d even signed his name with a flourish, that elegant ‘A’ he’d cut into Wesley’s skin. The vampire Gunn’s branded ‘G’ was crude by comparison.

He knew Wesley didn’t want to be alone with him and particularly not alone with him in the bathroom with Wesley naked and Angel looking. But even leaving aside the balance of power issues, Wesley wasn’t well enough to take a bath without supervision. So he had run the water, tested it, added more cold because even though Wesley was skin-deep dirty he was also covered in all those little cuts and burns and bites that weren’t going to be able to take really hot water touching them without hurting like hell; then escorted Wesley over to it and helped him to get in and sit down.

Wesley was sitting sort of hunched, knees up, arms around them, head lowered, trying not to act coy yet still having the body language of a teenage nun. He was clearly uncomfortable with having Angel around, which was only one of the reasons why Angel was currently sitting on the edge of his bath with a sponge in his hand.

He’d peeled off the bandages carefully, dumping them, all those soiled pieces of lint, mirror images of wounds now a few days further down the path of healing. Most of it was superficial, it was true; surface cuts and bruises and burns and welts; the lasting damage was more likely to be psychological; being made a victim for so long and so completely was bound to leave all kinds of mental scarring.

Sitting on the edge of the bath he began to sponge Wesley clean; justifying it to the angry murderous part of himself by pointing out that Wesley really didn’t like him doing it and it was a form of intimidation, and to the caring friend part of himself by pointing out that Wesley was too muscle torn and bruised to be able to sponge himself, and that Angel could see the wounds on his back more easily and so avoid them. 

“I need to wash your hair.” He didn’t mention how dirty Wesley’s hair was, what unmentionable substances it was sticky with, or how there were dried flakes of cream-coloured residue in all kinds of places they had no business being, like behind his ears. 

Wesley just nodded, hunching up a bit more. Angel ran the hand spray, testing it carefully to make sure it wasn’t too hot and then began to wet his hair, wondering if Angelus had water-tortured him; held his head under the water in one of the upstairs bathrooms of that other Hyperion. If they’d taken him from room to room or just kept him in the basement. The videotape had only shown the basement but perhaps that was where those home movie fans had set up the camera. And it had only shown four hours, of course, out of a possible hundred and forty four…. He couldn’t stop the shudder then, knowing how much pain Angelus could inflict in a fraction of that time. 

Wesley looked up at him in confusion. “What is it?”

“Close your eyes.” He saw a flicker of panic in those blue eyes and added quietly: “So the shampoo doesn’t get in them, Wes.”

“Oh.” Wesley snatched a breath and then closed his eyes. His nerves were on edge; Angel could feel that in the accelerated beat of his heart. 

He wet his hair thoroughly and then reached for the shampoo, hoping it wouldn’t sting any of the cuts on his back, focusing on what needed to be done as if Wesley wasn’t someone he’d recently tried to kill, as if doing this wasn’t reminding him of bathing Connor and the baby gurgling at him delightedly. He shampooed his hair; worked it in carefully, lathered, rinsed, repeated, just like it said on the bottle, keeping the spray ready in one hand to rinse away any white foam that might sting those open cuts. Wesley submitted to it, not really having any choice in the matter. It kept the balance of power between them weighted on Angel’s side; kept Wesley guessing; that helped offset some of his feeling of betrayal at being here in this bathroom with the man who had stolen his son. It wasn’t as if Wesley was enjoying the experience in any way. Wesley jumped like a nervous cat when Angel lathered his hands and began to soap his back; shuddering with reaction as hard male hands touched his skin. He was like someone in the dentist’s chair who’d had his nerve touched by the drill one too many times. 

Hearing the hitch of Wesley’s breath, the flinch as Angel sponged his shoulders, Angel said, “Am I hurting you?”

“No.” A small hoarse gasp of a reply.

“Just scaring you.”

Wesley looked up at him in mingled apology and something that looked a lot more like submission than defiance. Being here, like this, stripped and exposed and wet, seemed to be giving him too many flashbacks for him to hang onto his brittle coping façade. For all the bruises and the stubble and the shadows under them, the eyes were too much Wesley’s eyes; the hero-worshipping boy looking up to him a little shyly and hoping he wasn’t going to be yelled at or fired or told he was doing something wrong; and his friend’s eyes, the man who had grown into a leader and yet still devoted himself to Angel’s cause, who told him he was as unique as a rare book – the highest praise Wesley, the bibliophile, could bestow. This was the person whose body was an emaciated welted mess of recent pain; deep inside him something still shivering faintly with the shock of all the horror he’d experienced; as if a part of him were still in denial.

Angel tossed the sponge into the bath and handed him the hand spray. “Here, you deal with those hard-to-reach places while I change the sheets.”

“Angel, you don’t need to…” Wesley swallowed. “I can do it myself.”

“Yeah. But I can do it more easily.” He went back into the bedroom, not exactly surprised to see that the door he’d closed had been pushed open a crack. He wondered how many of them were out there monitoring the situation; Lorne would have followed him up, perhaps fetching some reinforcements on the way. Groo? Cordy? Gunn? Everyone was still trying to protect Fred from the Too Much Information monster and naked Wesley would definitely come under that category.

He thought about humming while he stripped the bed to give an impression of enigmatic insouciance but realized in time that it would just give Lorne a chance to read how conflicted he was. The bed linen stank of the events of that other dimension; Wesley had carried the stench home with him along with the mental and physical wounds and that video record of his degradation. It had seeped into Angel’s sheets, like a crime coming home to rest, blood and the various bodily fluids that had been smeared on him. He couldn’t help breathing it in as he wrenched the sheets from the mattress; and it still smelt as if he and Gunn were the ones that had done this.

Even as he dumped the dirty linen and tucked in the fresh sheets, he kept seeing the bruises and cuts and burns, and it didn’t help that he’d also seen the video tape of Angelus with a cigarette between his fingers, blowing on the tip to make it flare orange before he pressed it into vulnerable skin, that expression on his face, concentration and a mild gratification at the way the body twisted in pain, the skin sizzled, and Gunn with a knife, slicing shallowly before licking off the blood, then slicing again, and again, letting the blood build up before he ran his tongue across Wesley’s wounds; a good flow that Angel could almost taste in the back of his throat; the two of them smiling at one another in smug satisfaction over Wesley’s shivering, sweat-drenched, shock-shuddering body. 

With Wesley naked in the bathtub there had been no escaping any of it. He’d looked at the bruises, the earlier ones starting to fade slightly, the later ones still blossoming through the shades of mauve, blue, and yellow, ringing Wesley’s painfully thin wrists, and seen the cords cutting into his skin, his body twisting in helpless reaction, unable to bite down the cry of pain as Angelus sank his teeth into his thigh, or prized him open, or brought that belt down across his naked skin just for the fun of watching Wesley jolt in reaction.

They had done that to his friend; not for a few hours, like Faith; not for any purpose except that they enjoyed it; done it for days; trapped Wesley in that fire and blood nightmare where the only thing that ever followed pain was more pain, rape and torture and burnings and beatings; like an Inquisition victim that refused to confess. He wanted to stake them. No, that wasn’t entirely honest. He wanted to torture them first. He had his own demon, after all, he was the mirror image of that Angelus in the other world, of his own Angelus in this one, and he hadn’t entirely lost his willingness to inflict pain. So he wanted to stick a knife in that vampire Gunn’s guts and twist it slowly, wanted to break that other Angelus’s legs and toss him into a pit with a bunch of hungry dogs. And do it at night so he’d be alive for hours. Then he wanted to stake them. Or cut off their heads. Or set them on fire. And he couldn’t even admit it and so let some of the steam threatening to blow off the top of his head find a release. He wasn’t supposed to care, after all.

He channelled his rage into the wholly unsuitable task of straightening pillows and changing every single piece of linen so that nothing that had touched the body they had touched before their traces were washed from it remained. He even wrestled with the duvet cover, though he hated those things, missing the simplicity of blankets, changing that too, then gave him a coverlet so it looked like an old-fashioned bed, still, the kind that Angel preferred. Only after he’d finished did he realize he’d not only changed Wesley’s bed linen, he’d upgraded it. Done what he would have done if they’d still been friends, and given him the Egyptian cotton sheets and pillowcases; the red tasselled coverlet with the mirrors sewn into the crimson cloth.

On some level he didn’t want to access, in some part of his mind he didn’t want to visit, he knew that what Wesley had done when he stole Connor had come from a place of loyalty not betrayal. That it had been an act of love. Angel had always told him that he had to be willing to accept what Angel truly was; to keep a stake in a drawer; to protect the public from what he could become. Wesley had given up everything to try to save Angel’s son and it had almost cost him his life. And he had been staggeringly incompetent about it; but then he’d been running on no sleep and a nervous breakdown. Angel had stood there and watched him having the breakdown right in front of him, trying to help him and never glimpsing even for an instant the true cause of Wesley’s shadowed eyes and hysterical laughter. He’d had to make the Wesley who’d taken Connor someone else, a stranger he didn’t know, a monster he could kill with impunity; but it wasn’t as if he hadn’t witnessed half the steps that had taken Wesley to that place; finding him asleep at his desk, aware of Wesley locked into that office checking and rechecking his findings, more and more ground down and solitary and looking as if the weight of the world were resting on his shoulders. The uncomfortable truth was that the Wesley he had loved and trusted had done this; the Wesley who loved him enough to risk everything to try to save him from carrying the guilt of his son’s murder.

There was no way back for the Angel in that other dimension; he realized that too; there were crimes you could never come back from; the murder of innocents and family was terrible enough, but he had turned Gunn into the thing he most hated; killed Lorne, killed Groo; bestially murdered Cordelia and Fred, tortured two Wesleys half to death, and snapped the neck of his own son. Giving that Angel back his soul would be an act of cruelty only another Angelus could enjoy. The stake was the only thing left for him. Well, the hideous torture and _then_ the stake were still looking good. He pulled back the coverlet and spread a clean towel on the bed so the ointment and opened cuts could ooze onto something that was easier to wash than his sheets.

Angel went back to the bathroom and found Wesley trying to sponge himself while also trying not to wince at how much it hurt. He flinched when Angel appeared on the periphery of his vision; a microsecond of sheer panic followed by that look of apology and embarrassment. Angel took the hand spray from him, squeezed shower gel onto his shoulders and then rinsed it off with the spray; repeating the process on his back and chest and those thighs with the bite wounds marking them; until Wesley began to smell less like a victim and more like – bizarrely – apricots and peaches.

“Who bought this wussy showergel anyway?” Angel looked at it in confusion.

Wesley glanced up at him, still trying to assess his mood. “I think it’s Cordelia’s. Apparently this shower has the best pressure.”

“You’re going to smell like a girl.” He finished rinsing him off then sniffed him again, Wesley flinching as he did so. “Yep. You smell like a girl. Which is still an improvement.” 

“Can I go home?” 

Angel was wrong footed by that, feeling stung until he realized how absurd that was. He regarded Wesley gravely. “No. You’re not well enough to go home. How would you buy groceries? You can’t walk further than ten feet. If by some miracle you made it downstairs and stepped outside your apartment building everyone would stare at you. A child of six could mug you with a water pistol. And what if you passed out and hit your head?”

“I’m not your problem.”

Angel kept gazing at him. “Yes, you are, Wes. Taking my son made you my problem. And even if I wanted to dump you in the nearest garbage disposal, Cordy and Fred and Gunn and Lorne all have different ideas. Just because it’s called ‘Angel Investigations’ doesn’t mean I get the casting vote. This is a democracy.” _Something you could have remembered before you decided you were the only guy qualified to decide what had to be done about that prophecy._

“I thought it was more of a benevolent tyranny.”

Angel darted a look at him and once again there was his friend looking at him; under the cuts and bruises; behind the raspy voice and haunted eyes, there was a man he recognized. “Well, right now I’m benevolently tyrannizing your skinny English ass back to bed. You want to formulate an escape plan, you need to talk to the others; maybe they can smuggle you out in a laundry basket.”

“My last bid for freedom didn’t really go too well.”

He didn’t know if Wesley was throwing a challenge at him or just insisting Angel kept it at the forefront of his mind, that he was talking to the man who had taken Connor, so there would be no remembering it later, no sudden withdrawal of civilities, renewal of hostilities. _No, Wesley, I haven’t forgotten._

“Well, that was back in the day when I let you use the front door. Now you have to state your reason for leaving in triplicate and apply three weeks in advance. All part of the whole ‘trying to avoid being stabbed in the back by my trusted friends’ new office policy.”

He almost admired and almost disliked Wesley for not flinching at that. The man just gazed at him before saying hoarsely, “Is that what I was?”

Angel returned his gaze unblinkingly. “You know that’s what you were. Do you think anyone else would have been able to walk out of here with my son in his arms? That’s what you took advantage of.”

Wesley dropped his gaze. “That would explain why it was such an easy decision to make.”

Angel left a few seconds before answering, trying to find a place of calm between that pendulum swing of recrimination and anger and something beginning to tug at him that felt like a traitorous impulse to forgive. “Let’s get you back to bed.”

Wesley gripped the edge of the bath, trying to get enough purchase to stand upright; doggedly stubborn about it. Angel stepped back and let him try; watched as Wesley lurched and staggered to his feet, then turned pale and flinched from what was clearly a very loud hissing in his ears. He’d caught his elbow before he could stop himself, holding him steady for the moment he needed to snatch a breath and the dizziness to pass. Angel snagged a towel from the radiator and wrapped it around his waist, knotting it above the bruise over his left hipbone; the towel went around him easily with room to spare. He put an arm around his back and lifted him out of the bath then set him on his feet because it was basically just easier, and the same went for helping him into the bedroom. 

Wesley looked at the made bed and said hoarsely: “Coals of fire?”

Angel felt an unwilling spasm of liking for this new in-your-face Wesley. He wondered if it was as much of an act as that pompous little know-it-all thing he’d had going in Sunnydale to hide his deep-seated insecurities; if this was Wesley’s way of preventing himself from falling on his knees and begging for forgiveness. There was something in the tilt of his head that said he was damned well not going to ask any of them to forgive him for something that he thought he’d been morally justified in doing. And as long as he didn’t come right out and articulate that, Angel could probably keep the anger with him under control and even – yes, there it was again – feel that little twinge of admiration for this Daniel in the lion’s den.

“Yeah. I changed the bed linen to make you feel bad. Is it working?”

Wesley looked at him sideways, an under the eyelashes glance that was unexpectedly vulnerable, as was that whispered: “Yes.”

Angel automatically tightened his grip on his shoulders and found himself helping him to the bed with a gentleness that probably surprised both of them.

“I’ll get the first aid kit.” He didn’t meet Wesley’s eye.

“You don’t have to. I’m – healing.”

Angel still kept his gaze averted. “I’ll be right back.” As he headed for the door he heard a scrambling sound of people who had evidently been peering through the crack scattering into other rooms so he wouldn’t see them. 

“Angel…?”

How many times had he heard Wes say his name? It still had power to move him; still made his name sound like someone who had all the answers, who could solve any problem.

“You don’t have to say it,” Angel said, not looking back.

“Thank you.”

He’d said it anyway. So softly perhaps only someone with vampire hearing could pick it up. Angel wondered how words could still have so much power between them; after the lies and the betrayal and the pillow how could two words still matter? But they did. He snatched a breath he didn’t need and opened the door into the corridor. Almost against his will he found himself saying, “You’re welcome.”

***

Gunn was waiting for him in the lobby – hanging around by the front desk looking simultaneously furtive and as if he were steeling himself to some great and difficult task. Angel checked the message pad for calls, saying over his shoulder: “That mystic guy must have done his stuff because his ribs aren’t broken any more, just bruised. I’ve strapped them up again. His lungs are fine, no coughing. The rest seems to be healing okay. Probably best if he sleeps for a few hours then try him with some more of that soup, maybe some ice cream.”

He noticed Gunn’s face; the expression of someone about to tell him something he wasn’t going to want to hear. 

“What?” Angel demanded.

“I’ve been thinking, if Wes wants to go back to his place, I could go with him.” Gunn evidently expected Angel to say something and when he didn’t, plunged on: “He doesn’t want to be here and you don’t want him here so why don’t I take him home and stay there a few days until he’s back on his feet and –”

“Because it won’t be a few days until he’s back on his feet. It will be weeks. And what happens if we get a client? I call you, you have to come over here instead of being on the spot and meanwhile Wes is left by himself. If he’s here and we have a case, Lorne or Fred or Cordy can take care of him while we’re out.”

“I don’t like him being a prisoner.” Gunn faced him. “I’m not sure I can go on being a party to him being a prisoner, Angel.”

“He’s not.”

“What else do you call it when the guy wants to be someplace other than here and you’re not letting him go there?”

“It’s for his own good.” As Gunn looked unconvinced, Angel said, “So, you’re seriously going to spend the next month babysitting Wesley in his place when he’s better off here? It’s crazy.”

“Is he safe here?” Gunn gazed at him intently.

“Are you talking about earthquakes? Subsidence? Roof falling in? Demons invading? Wolfram & Hart trying to kill us all or…?”

“You. I’m talking about you. Is Wesley safe from you?”

Angel took a moment before answering, not sure he wanted to give up his current position as angry enigma, then he had to concede the point. “Yes. He’s safe from me, Gunn. I’m not over what he did but I’m over wanting to kill him for it. The moment’s passed.”

“I need to know you’re telling me the truth.” Gunn gazed at him intently.

“And when did I ever lie to you?”

“When you pretended you cared about Wesley’s welfare to get into that hospital room.”

Angel sighed. “Fine. Be like that. I’ve told you the truth. I’m no threat to him. And it’s all academic anyway. Giles is coming to fetch him home to England so the Council can reprogram him as a research assistant to some stuffy old fart of a Watcher.”

“What?” Gunn looked dismayed, and Cordelia, coming out of the office, shared his expression. “Is that what Wes wants?”

“I don’t think Giles is consulting him. He’s going to do what’s best for him. That’s what Watchers do, you know. Take it on themselves to do what’s best for others.”

Cordelia put her hands on her hips. “Giles can’t just take Wesley back to England like he’s lost luggage or something. And why would Wesley want to go back to England anyway? The food’s terrible, so is the weather, and his father’s there.”

“Well, tell Giles that because he’s sure he knows best.”

“Well, he’s not going,” said Cordelia in her best brooking-no-argument tone. “He’s staying right here.”

“Or at his place,” Gunn suggested. “His place would be good.”

“Were you planning to take Fred with you or just have conjugal visits?” Angel enquired. “And were you planning to share the one bed with Wesley or sleep on the couch?”

Gunn looked at him narrowly. “You know, sarcasm from a vampire – not a good look.”

“And if Wolfram & Hart want him as badly as their thousand dollars a day pay offer suggests what were you planning to do if they decided to just extract him to their offices?”

Cordelia looked at Gunn. “Much as I hate to agree with Angel when he’s in sarky bitch mode – he does have a point. Wesley knows a lot about Angel Investigations and Wolfram & Hart have evidently noticed. I wouldn’t put it past Lilah the evil bitch queen to decide that if Wesley won’t go willingly they’ll just kidnap him anyway. And right now – Wes not exactly in a position to put up much of a fight.”

“So, he stays here then.” Gunn looked across at Angel. “But I meant what I said, Angel. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, I’ll cut your damned head off.”

“And as I said, it’s all academic anyway as Giles is going to take him back to England.”

“No, he isn’t,” Cordelia said shortly. “There’s nothing for Wesley in England. This is where his life is.”

“What life?” Gunn countered. “As someone who used to work for Angel and used to be our friend?”

Cordelia looked across at him. “He made a terrible mistake and I’m not saying that anyone should just forget what he did, but he’s still my friend. I forgot that for a while because I was so upset about what he did, but him being back here has made me realize that I can’t just stop caring about him just because he did something that makes me want to –” She sighed. “And I don’t even want to do that any more. He’s paid for what he did and paid way more than anyone here – even Angel, if he’s honest – would want him to pay. If he goes running back to England it’s just going to make everything he did here worthless and a failure. I had to go back into high school and face everyone after Xander cheated on me with geek girl – well, Wesley has to stay here and work through his redemption like everyone else in this place.” As Gunn looked at her cynically, Cordy poked him in the chest. “And yes, those two things are comparable, smarty pants. Do you know how much of a plummet in popularity I took dating Loser Harris? And getting _cheated_ on by Loser Harris that was like, social death. By the time my father lost all his money and they took my pony away, I was already on social skid row. So, don’t give me that what do you know about hitting rock bottom look, because I so do.”

Gunn sighed. “I don’t want Wes going back to England. He screwed up here. Everyone agrees he screwed up as much as anyone can – well, that means he has to fix it, and he can’t fix it if he’s in England. And I don’t mean getting Connor back. We know that can’t happen.” He glanced at Angel as if to check if this was news to him and Angel conceded the point with a shrug. “Any more than Angel can undo what Angelus did. But running away to England to escape from what he did, that’s not going to solve anything.”

“Tell Giles,” Angel countered. “Maybe he’ll listen to you. He certainly wasn’t listening to me.”

***

“Wakey, wakey, pumpkin pie. It’s the jolly green…demon with the soup of the day and something Cordelia made that actually smells quite edible.”

Wesley blinked at Lorne in confusion for a moment and then began to painfully attempt to sit up; his muscles still ached whenever he tried to move, his ribs creaking a protest while every burn and cut and bruise complained at him bitterly. Things were getting better; it didn’t feel as if he were going to throw up every time he breathed in; swallowing wasn’t quite so much like gargling with razor blades, and the internal bruising was starting to ease off, but he still felt kitten-weak after a sleep and his spine still seemed to have been put together wrong. Lorne seemed to know all that, immediately putting down the tray to catch him gently under the arms and help him to ease him into a sitting position.

Lorne slipped a pillow behind his back and took him by the shoulders, helping him sit back.

“Okay, sugar plum? Ready for your latest snackette?”

“Lorne.” Wesley gazed at the demon. “I never said sorry for… I am sorry…”

“That’s okay. I get that you were in a panicking place. Not to mention a stressed halfway to insanity’s parking garage place.”

Wesley thought back to that day and flinched. “Yes. I’d say that was a fair assessment. But I’m still sorry for knocking you out.”

Lorne put the tray on his lap, sat on the bed next to him and held out a spoon. “Apology accepted. For my part I’m sorry I didn’t read you a little better and give Angel a rather fuller explanation of what you’d been up to. I was a little freaked by the whole ‘running away with Connor and not coming back’ vibe.”

Wesley nodded. “Understandable.”

“You just weren’t the one anyone was expecting to go snap, crackle and pop, crumpet. We expected that to be Angel’s preserve. Guess we kind of took you being the sane one for granted.”

Wesley sighed and took the spoon from Lorne. “Well, that’s a mistake no one else will be making in a hurry.”

Lorne let him drink some of his soup, holding the tray steady for him as he did so, although Wesley appreciated that it wasn’t so much the practical use of the demon sitting on his bed that was so healing, as him sticking around to make friendly small talk. He appreciated that more and more, the way they could have just dumped the food on his lap in the manner of jailors with a criminal guilty of a particularly repellent crime whom common decency demanded they must still nevertheless feed; but no one had treated him like that. Cordelia had certainly told it like she saw it, in the manner of someone who needed to blow him up once and then turn a new page, and he’d appreciated her honesty and her willingness to move on, and Angel had certainly made no secret of how angry he was initially, but Groo, Lorne and Fred had all been careful of his feelings and gentle towards him. 

Gunn, of course, had been freaked. And Wesley had been equally freaked. He hadn’t really expected that. Hadn’t really expected to be having this much contact with them ever again for one thing. He’d found himself in a basement with no blood and no mattress and no ropes or chains or unpleasant implements scattered around and realized that the strange sensation he’d felt which had seemed to be the gershunik nut doing its job at last had indeed been the ending of the spell; which meant he was in the Hyperion in his own time with an Angel who wanted to kill him; an Angel he thought he could hear approaching along the sewer route. He’d staggered up the stairs, clutching that stinking blanket to him, dragging his beaten shaking body by sheer willpower alone, still keeping a hold of the carrier bag the Angelus of the other dimension had put ready to take to the nearest mailing point, which he’d snatched at as soon as he felt his body beginning to undergo some cataclysmic change. He still didn’t know how he’d made it across the lobby and outside, only that he had been fuelled by a combination of the need to survive that avoiding Angel finding him here demanded, and the equally strong compulsion to know that Fred and Cordelia were still alive. He hadn’t expected that he would be having to gaze into Gunn’s eyes, or feel the man touch him, his face suddenly changed not just from that of a friend to an ex-friend, but from an ex-friend to a sadistic tormentor and back again.

“What happened to the blanket?”

Lorne looked at him for a moment and then got what he was talking about. “It’s incinerated. Burnt to the crispiest crisp and now the ashiest ash you can imagine. We figured you probably wouldn’t want it for a keepsake.”

Wesley nodded. “You figured right.”

As he went to put down his spoon, Lorne said, “Uh-huh, muffin. You need to eat all of those or there’s no extra tasty fruit sorbet for you today. And did I mention that Cordelia made the sorbet?”

“You’ve all been very…” He felt abruptly choked up. He didn’t want to do this. Didn’t want to sit here and feel that he wasn’t worthy of anyone’s regard, or so painfully grateful for their kindness to him; didn’t want to get himself into a place where all he did was look at them with apologetic eyes and try to excuse himself for breathing while they rained their lofty beneficence down upon him, but he couldn’t pretend that they weren’t being kinder than he not only expected but felt that he deserved. And they weren’t doing this to make him feel bad or because common humanity dictated that they should; they were doing this because on some level they still thought of him as a friend.

Lorne said, “Guess what they’ve all been doing downstairs?”

Wesley looked at him in confusion. “Killing demons?”

“Nope. Arguing over who gets to keep you. Giles wants you for – well, not a sunbeam, it being England and all and so seriously lacking in the sunbeams, but to whisk you away from all this. Gunn thinks you’d be better off at home, with him guarding the door against incoming vampires with possible grudges. And Cordy wants you here where she can take care of you.”

Wesley moistened his lips. “What does Angel want?”

Lorne smiled, red eyes kinder than any horned demon’s had the right to be. “Well, let’s just say he wasn’t exactly dancing a jig about Giles’s proposal – or Gunn’s. And whatever he’s saying in public his aura is saying – well, pretty much ‘hands off my Watcher’.”

Wesley felt a terrible pang for what might have been – what had been for the best part of two very good years. “I can’t ever be that again, Lorne.”

The demon took the soup bowl away and put the sorbet in front of him, gently tugging the soup spoon out of his fingers that he was holding so tightly, and putting the clean one into them in its place, red eyes wise and kind as he said gently: “You may be surprised.”

***

The next few days mostly consisted of everything beginning to hurt a little less: physically, emotionally, mentally. Wesley realized just how badly he had been doing in isolation, when the only human contact he had was with Lilah Morgan turning up to remind him how alone he was these days. The way no one was talking to him had made it impossible to believe that what he had done was anything other than unforgivable. Even though he knew intellectually that he had been trying to save Connor from being murdered by a man he admired above all others, and saving Angel from carrying the possibly unbearable guilt of having killed his much-loved son, the fact that it had ended in such disaster would have been difficult to bear even without Angel’s murderous fury making it clear that, yes, he was being blamed for what had happened, that no allowances were going to be made for his intentions, his actions judged entirely on their end result.

Things were now very different. A day didn’t go by when he didn’t get at least one visit from Cordelia, Lorne and Fred. Groo daily stuck his head around the door with a bright smile for him and some halting greeting and question about his health. Gunn also tended to hover in the doorway, saying, “So, how are you feeling?” and then edging away quickly as soon as Wesley said he was feeling a lot better, thank you. Making eye contact still seemed to be off the agenda as far as he and Gunn were concerned but the man was being kind to him albeit usually before ducking and running. Cordelia and Lorne usually brought him his meals while Fred had taken to almost bouncing onto his bed to show him a paper she was mulling over that seemed to be a new and exciting attempt to explain sub-dimensional physics. She also had a few gadgets she was making that she suggested they could work on together when he was better, to add a mystical element to her practical know-how.

He’d been mildly amused by that. “You really want me adding a magical element to your working model given the way my last spell turned out?”

She grimaced and unexpectedly bent and kissed his forehead. “Don’t let’s talk about that, Wesley. I’m just glad you’re back.” 

Cordelia had turned up with scissors, saying that he needed a haircut. “In fact, let’s be honest here, Wes, you’ve needed a haircut for six months. I just haven’t been brutal enough to tell you your hair looks like crap.”

“But I don’t want…”

“And what makes you think you get a choice? What’s the point in having a friend under house arrest if you can’t give him a make over he doesn’t want but really needs?” She dropped a couple of magazines open on his lap. “As a special concession, I’ll let you pick which style you want but it has to be one of these.”

Remembering her affection for Jude Law, he thought it would be most tactful to pick that style; it was also short and spiky and didn’t look too unmanageable. He had evidently made the right choice as she beamed at him, giving him the full thousand watt smile he had certainly never expected to see turned in his direction again. Pointing quickly, he said, “I like that one best and that one second best.” He didn’t recognize the second actor but his style was similar, just with a straighter line across the brow although still doing strange sticking up things that he couldn’t really imagine his hair doing. Cordelia, however, seemed to think differently.

“Right, I’ll improvise. Now – sink, so I can dampen it down.” She practically hauled him out of the bed, and he tried not to lean on her as she tugged him in the direction of the bathroom. An hour of spraying him with warm – and sometimes cold – water, snipping of scissors and much Cordelia walking around him gazing intently at her work while frowning in a way that made him nervous, and she declared her work done. She gave his hair a quick rub, flicked the towel around the back of his neck, and then took him by the elbow and pushed him in front of the mirror. “Tell me what you think.”

He glanced at her warily. “Don’t you mean tell you that I like it?”

She grinned. “Damned straight. And a ‘thank you, Cordelia’ would also be a good idea.”

Dutifully, he said, “Thank you, Cordelia.” They smiled at each other and it was momentarily just like old times.

 

Angel was still taking responsibility for helping him bathe, and changing the dressings on his wounds, although each time they were changed there were less that needed to be re-applied. They weren’t communicating much but Angel was being distantly civil to him. There was a sense with Angel that there wasn’t with anyone else that Wesley was not only here on sufferance but also not entirely safe, but Angel’s sometimes brusque manner was contradicted by his unexpectedly gentle handling of Wesley’s cuts and burns, applying ointment and bandages with as deft a touch as Lorne or Cordelia.

“Giles wants you to go back to England with him.”

That came out of the blue after a particularly long and awkward silence as he sat in the bath once again as Angel washed his new, shorter and, according to Cordelia, very fashionable, hair.

Wesley blinked water out of his eyes. “Oh.”

“Is that an ‘oh, how jolly, I can’t wait to pack my toothbrush’ or an ‘oh, I have to think about that’?”

“It’s just an ‘oh’ really.”

“Do you want to go back to England?”

“Not particularly. But if Giles thinks I can be useful there…” He didn’t meet Angel’s eye. “I’d like to be useful.”

“What’s stopping you being useful here?” Angel sounded positively belligerent and Wesley darted him a somewhat nervous glance.

“I don’t know.” That seemed the safest answer.

Angel finished rinsing off his hair before abruptly switching off the flow again. “Gunn wants to take you home.”

“I don’t mind going home.” Wesley cast around for the right thing to say. “Get out of your hair.”

Angel got up; movements still quick and more angry than not. “So, you want to go home?”

Wesley licked his lips nervously. “I know I’m taking up a lot of everyone’s time. I don’t have the right to expect… You’ve all been very…forgiving but I don’t…”

Angel wheeled around. “You fucked up, Wes. Big time.”

“I know. I know that.”

“And you did it here. To us. Don’t you think you ought to make amends to us, not the Watchers’ Council?”

“Yes, of course, if…” Wesley realized he had no idea what Angel wanted from him. He gazed up at him in confusion, aware of being naked, and wet, droplets cooling rapidly on skin still marked with yellowing bruises, healing cuts, still-shiny burns. 

Angel turned around and looked into his eyes for a long moment; the connection between them like some tangible presence that had come into the bathroom with them. “If you go home someone’s going to have to go with you – take care of you. That’s one less person around if something comes up.”

“I can manage by myself.”

“No, you can’t.” Angel picked up a towel. “And let’s review the last two things you tried to do by yourself, shall we, Wesley?”

Wesley flinched and ducked his head. He could imagine standing up to Angel and sometimes even managed it, but he couldn’t look at the man now without seeing the way he had smiled at Connor, the love he’d had for that baby; the baby Wesley had lost.

“Come on.”

Wesley looked up to see Angel shaking out the towel and obediently tried to struggle to his feet. Angel’s fingers closed on his arm to steady him, helping him step out of the bath, and then the towel was wrapped around him. It was soft and warm from the radiator and felt so good against his still tender skin. Angel gave his hair another rub with a different towel. In a different tone, he said, “I’m just saying that if you’re here we can take care of you without splitting our forces. And why can’t you be useful in LA?”

“I’ll do whatever you want.” That came out much too breathless and spineless but he couldn’t help himself; sometimes the urge to grovel for forgiveness could only be beaten down by a tremendous effort of will.

“What do you want, Wesley?”

He took a deep breath and faced the man. “If I thought it were possible for you to ever…take me back, I’d like to stay here and be useful. I know it can never be the way it was before.”

“No. It can’t.” Angel seemed to be trying to pick his words with care. “But it can be what it is from now on. Which is – whatever we choose to make it, I suppose.”

Wesley wasn’t sure what Angel meant by that and didn’t feel quite prepared to ask. He wondered if they would ever feel like equals again; almost wishing that he had just gone to England, severed all ties with these people; walked off in high dudgeon and told himself that he didn’t owe them anything any more. Except he owed Angel the son he’d stolen and that was something he could never replace.

Angel helped him limp back to the clean bed with the clean sheets and the fresh towel on it, the first aid kit laid out next to it ready for Angel to strap up his ribs again and put ointment on the stubborn last few cuts and burns.

Wesley darted a glance at him. “I want to be useful.”

As if he hadn’t spoken, Angel said, “We’re still doing the same things here. Cordy gets the visions. Gunn, Groo and I go out and slice and dice it. A few times it would have been useful to know what we’re up against. Fred’s been trying but – half your books aren’t even in English, Wes. What language is that old red one with the weird pictures?”

“Geshundi.”

“Just saying, there’s a few times we could have done with your help. What’s the deal with Tharlock demons and the spitting in your eyes thing?”

“It’s a venomous bile, not unlike the poison of the spitting cobra. It can cause blindness if it’s not washed out quickly with condensed milk.”

“Condensed milk?” Angel looked at him in disbelief. “We paid fifty bucks in Meg’s for some special de-blinding lotion she said Gunn needed.”

“Condensed milk is actually better. I always kept a tin of that and black treacle in the back of the cabinet in the office. The treacle is the best antidote to a Hefraxan bite. Magic shops will always try to sell you that overpriced Guntorian Night – “

“Nightshade Elixir.” Angel pulled a face. “Meg stung us for a bottle of that as well. Said there was a nest of Hefraxans down by the railway.”

“They usually nest near running water. Interestingly it appears to be due to a superstition on their part about vampires not being able to cross it. If you put black treacle on a Hafraxan bite it works as an antidote to the poison. It usually reduces the swelling within an hour or so.” Wesley sat down on the bed carefully. “In the back of Coolidge’s Common Demonic Remedies I’ve written down a list of the household supplies one can use as an antidote to common venomous or semi-venomous bites.”

“Okay – and this is why you’d be more useful here than over in England where they don’t even fight demons, they just…read about them.”

“We do have demons in England, Angel.”

“So, how many demons had you killed before you came to Sunnydale?”

Wesley conceded the point with a shrug. “None.”

“We have more demons than we know what to do with here and we need informed…information about them.”

“If I can be useful here of course I’ll stay.” Wesley wondered if Angel really did not know that.

Angel walked over to the sideboard and moved some of the ornaments around. “I’m not going to hurt you. Gunn thinks I’m…just biding my time.”

Wesley watched him carefully. “Well, revenge supposedly is a dish best eaten cold.”

Angel spun around. “I was angry, Wesley. You stole my son. He ended up in a hell dimension because of you. I wanted to hurt you as much as you’d hurt me. I wanted to do what you’d done and look into your eyes and pretend to be something I wasn’t…” He looked away. “But, that was then – this is now. I have people I’m responsible for. If you stay here I need to know that you’re going to be looking out for them. That I can trust you to try to keep them safe.”

“I will certainly do my best.”

Angel looked at him again. “I trusted you with my son. That’s more trust than I have left. But despite everything that’s happened I do believe you’d do what you could to keep Cordelia and Fred safe.”

Wesley inclined his head. “I would. But I can understand you not believing that after what happened.”

“So, will you do it?”

Wesley wondered if he had missed a page of this conversation. “Do what?”

Angel rolled his eyes. “Research, Wes. For us?”

“Yes, of course.” 

“Okay.” And that actually looked like a hint of a grin from Angel, and there was something almost jaunty about his step as he came back to the bed. “Let’s get these ribs strapped up.”

Wesley couldn’t help thinking that if what Angel was aiming for in their interaction with one another at the moment was to constantly wrong foot him and keep him guessing that he was certainly managing that very well indeed.

***

It was strange how easy it was to fall into this new pattern. The office was no longer his, of course, even supposing he had been strong enough to walk to it. Nothing here was ‘his’. His books had been pretty much confiscated and as he’d bought them as research tools for Angel Investigations, and Angel Investigations was still continuing without him that seemed fair enough. He was most certainly no longer the man in charge; just the resident patient. But as well as feeding him and helping him to shower and binding up his healing wounds, the others were also starting to allow him to be useful.

“Wes – five claws, dorsal ridge, three horns and really big… any ideas?”

That was Gunn, carrying a selection of books which he offered to Wesley hopefully as he burst into his door without knocking.

Wesley was more pleased than not about the ‘without knocking’ thing; it suggested Gunn was getting slightly less freaked about the prospect of being around him.

“Between six and eight feet or between eight and ten feet tall?” He helped Gunn to stack the books on the bed around him, reaching for a pen and the notebook Angel had left for him a few days earlier.

“Cordy…?” Gunn went to the door to shout down the question then came back to the bed. “She says her visions don’t actually come with a measuring stick, dumbass.”

Wesley barely concealed a grin. “Let’s start with the Gefryllg family and see if anything matches her description. Worry about whether we’re dealing with the major or minor sub-species after we’ve identified it.”

“If that means I don’t have to ask her any more questions when she’s crabby, I’m all over that idea.”

“Are she and Groo not…?” Wesley asked diffidently. He wasn’t sure if he was still included in talking about their private lives. He was certainly very careful never to ask Gunn or Fred anything about their love life.

“Damned vision turned up on her day off just before the moment of truth. You bet she’s crabby.” Gunn held out a book pathetically. “Where do I look?”

Wesley took it from him, turned to the section that would deal with the most likely demons and then handed it back.

They researched together, occasionally calling down to Cordelia to ask her questions about her vision, Wesley neatly listing the demons that were possibilities and then crossing them off as their research revealed them to have the wrong physical characteristics or habits to be a threat.

After about an hour of passing books between each other, turning pages, cross-referencing, mostly in a surprisingly companionable near-silence, Gunn got up and closed the door then came back to the bed.

Wesley wondered if he was now going to hear from Gunn all the reasons why Wesley was a screw-up.

“Wes, are you okay staying here?”

Wesley blinked at him in confusion. “In the hotel?”

“In Angel’s hotel. After what he nearly did to you in the hospital. Would you rather be home?” As Wesley didn’t immediately say anything, Gunn said, “Because I can take you home. If that’s what you want. Stay there with you until you’re back on your feet again. If you don’t want to be here. If Angel’s…” He gritted his teeth. “Is he bullying you?”

“No.” Wesley’s eyes widened. “He’s – been very kind to me.”

Gunn looked at him sadly. “Are you just saying that because you don’t trust me? Do you think I’m going to report back to him?”

“No.” And the thought had never crossed his mind. “Of course, I trust you, Gunn, it’s just that… He’s angry, yes. He doesn’t pretend otherwise. But he hasn’t… I want to stay here. I want to be useful.”

“I know he can threaten you without laying a finger on you. We both know how long he needs to snap someone’s neck. I need to know you’re not a prisoner. That I’m not just going on downstairs answering the phone like nothing’s wrong when all the time… Like some spineless son-of-a-bitch neighbour not calling social services when the kid next door never stops crying.”

“Gunn, I swear it isn’t like that. He asked me what I wanted to do. I said I wanted to stay here and help. Is that okay with you…?” He looked at him uncertainly; not really sure about Gunn’s opinion of the proceedings.

“Yeah. Of course.” Gunn sighed in relief. “Okay, just needed to know…”

“It’s appreciated.” Wesley swallowed, any talk of that night making his throat hurt, as if the gash were going to open up again, his blood spill. “I never thanked you for saving my life. You and Fred – you found me.”

“Yeah. Took too damned long. That bitch Justine…” Gunn shook his head then glanced at Wesley. “About what went down in that other dimension…? Are we…? Are we good?”

“Of course.” Wesley had to admit Gunn was surprising him today. “It was nothing to do with you. The Gunn in that dimension was already dead before I got there.” He snatched a breath and then made a vague gesture between his chest and Gunn’s. “Are we…okay?”

Gunn nodded. “Yeah, English, we’re good. You fucked up. You nearly died. You tried to fix it. You nearly died again. Shit happens. I’m sorry so much of it happened to you. Just don’t be going too…you know…brainy boy around Fred. Makes me look bad. Could you at least pretend you don’t know what she’s talking about when she’s spouting all that physics trans-dimensional sub-space stuff?”

Wesley smiled faintly. “I really don’t understand all of it.”

Gunn sighed and straightened up. “I guess I’ll just have to hope she ain’t dating me for my mind.”

“There’s nothing wrong with your mind, Charles.” Wesley frowned at the thought that he didn’t know that. It stung that Fred had picked Gunn. It had felt wrong to him and it still did; it probably always would; if he were honest; but it still bothered him to hear Gunn talking about himself as if he lacked intelligence. Book-learning was something Wesley and Fred had in common and Gunn and Fred did not; intelligence was common to all of them. “The fact you’re still alive when you were living on the streets fighting vampires at an age when I was worrying about getting all my prep done rather proves it, I would have thought.”

Gunn made to answer and then noticed the page upon which the book had fallen open. “Hey – is this…?”

Wesley craned his neck to look and then beamed at Gunn. “Five claws. Three horns. A Xakanal Demon – extremely violent and aggressive, the horns are venom-tipped and the claws can rip apart metal, feeds on human flesh, particularly the young. As candidates go for a demon that’s nesting by a primary school… I think you’ve found it. Can you take the book to Cordelia?”

Gunn grabbed the book and was halfway to the door before he said, “You okay? You need anything?”

“Gunn, I can get to the bathroom by myself now.” Wesley didn’t add that he sometimes had to sit down halfway when the buzzing in his ears became too loud and certainly did a lot of clinging to walls. The fact was he could do it and he was proud of it.

“Okay – maybe tonight we can have take out? You want a game of Risk?”

Wesley realized there was a real chance he was going to get teary-eyed if Gunn didn’t leave soon. “That would be…fun.” As Gunn headed for the door he felt a terrible pang of loss and anxiety; realizing that this was how it must have been for Cordelia when he and Gunn were going off to fight the monsters in her visions together. This, too, had been his inheritance, because this was what Watchers did, waited to find out if when the dawn came around again, they would still have a Slayer to Watch for. “Be careful,” he added quickly. “They’re very nasty creatures. Be sure to read everything it says about them in Rheinhardt’s. I think some ground up ivy leaf toadflax may be efficacious in confusing it when you first enter its lair. Check in Rheinhardt’s – oh, and there’s some of the powder you’ll need in the back of the cupboard in the office…”

Gunn paused in the doorway to give him a fond smile. “Hey, a few more weeks and you’ll be out there mixing it with us again.”

Wesley had to swallow a lump in his throat at the look on Gunn’s face. “Won’t that be jolly?”

“Don’t tell me you don’t miss the entrails splattering on your favourite shirt? Not to mention the many opportunities demon hunting presents for dying a horrible painful death?”

“Well, when you put it like that… I’ll be counting the days.” Wesley realized that losing any of these people would be unbearable; and that was also what had turned that other Wesley in the other dimension into a basketcase. Not just witnessing what had happened to Cordelia and Fred, but losing Gunn and Angel. There had been no one left for him at all by the end of it. “You will be careful? Xakanals are…”

“Not going to invite us in for milk and cookies? Don’t tend to go in much for the rescuing of fluffy kittens? You think I’m not safe without you there to nag me on the job, Wes?”

Wesley conceded the point with a sigh. “No. I admit you are fully able to dismember scaly demons without me holding your hand.”

“Cause I was thinking if you _did_ think that, the best way to help me out would be to get better so you can come along, right? So, why don’t you work on that while I go get me a Xakanal horn for my collection.”

“You can’t touch the horn, it’s poisonous!”

Gunn grinned at him, a real old-fashioned wind up grin. “Your buttons are so easy to push.” He held up the book, with his finger marking the page, showing he was indeed intending to do a little research. “I’ll be back later – in one piece – and you are so going to get your ass kicked at Risk.”

Then Gunn was gone, the door closed gently behind him, and Wesley was left alone in a room that somehow didn’t feel anything like as lonely as it felt even an hour before.

***

Angel had to admit he was feeling hurt. It wasn’t that he wanted everyone to hate Wesley forever, but the man _had_ stolen his son. He knew everyone hadn’t just forgotten about Connor, but he did worry that the baby had maybe receded for them a little, like a dream. 

This morning as he came into the lobby he found Fred preparing Wesley’s breakfast tray. And he was glad the man was getting breakfast, he really was. He’d always been too skinny and six days of being starved by sadistic torturers hadn’t done a lot to help with that problem. So, it was fine that Wesley got the cloth napkin and the good cutlery, and the wholemeal toast he liked best, all six slices of it – so he guessed Fred was planning to have breakfast with him – and it was even okay about the little pot of English marmalade and the pat of butter and English Breakfast tea – made in a pot because the flavour was so much nicer according to Wesley although frankly Angel had never been able to tell the difference – but did he really need that little vase with the flowers in it as well?

He tried not to look too hurt and reproachful but Fred must have seen his expression because she immediately looked guilty and tried to shield the tray with her arm. “Oh, I was just… you know… because his room is kind of dark and he can’t… get out much…” she trailed off lamely.

“It’s fine.” Angel tried not to sound as if he’d just been kicked, despite feeling that way. “You could try eggs another day. He likes eggs.”

Fred wordlessly lifted up the top of the little metal covered platter he hadn’t noticed until then with the scrambled egg in it. She gestured vaguely at the kitchen. “There’s all those little pans and things and it seems a shame to waste it…”

“You should take it to him while it’s hot.” He forced a smile onto his face and then went into the office, feeling unloved. It wasn’t as if he could really enjoy scrambled eggs or marmalade on toast or freshly-brewed tea anyway; and it wasn’t as if people hadn’t been full of sympathy for him over the loss of Connor. Everyone knew what it had done to him and – 

He found Fred squeezing his arm. “Angel, you know we haven’t forgotten about Connor, don’t you? That everyone knows you’re still hurting? And how much we appreciate you not… you know, how much we appreciate you being good to Wesley. It’s just that he’s our friend too…”

He felt a lot better. “It’s fine.” He patted her on the shoulder. “Take him his breakfast.” It was only once she was out of earshot that he found himself thinking ‘our friend too’? _As if you’re my friend and his friend but I’m not his friend? He was my friend first._ He wasn’t quite sure when Wesley had been hijacked by everyone else. Okay, Cordelia had liked him first, but Wesley and Gunn hadn’t even liked each other the first time they met – well, not the first time because Wesley had been unconscious then – 

Flip side of vampire perfect recall; the way the bad memories could just come rushing back in full sensaround just when you wanted them least. Smoke and flames and Wesley lying there so scarily still. The spike of terror at the thought that he’d lost him too. Turning him over to look at his blood-stained face, listening for a heartbeat and hearing it, faint but there.

He was still reeling from that unwelcome memory as Gunn walked into the lobby, whistling and carrying a bundle of mail, some of which actually looked interesting. Angel looked up hopefully. “We’ve got mail? Mail that isn’t just bills?”

Gunn came over to the front desk. “No, this is Wes’s mail. Thought I may as well pick it up for him on my way to work. He gets cool stuff, look – weapons catalogue, musty old book catalogue, musty old book auction catalogue, magic ingredients catalogue, another weapons catalogue, another book catalogue, and something that looks like it could be an invitation to a seminar on something about crypto-zoo-something or other.”

“How can you tell?” Angel took the mail from him and noticed that most of the catalogues were in see-through plastic cases or had a stamped return address on the envelope usually with a little logo showing a book or interesting weapon of some kind. For a moment there he’d thought Gunn’s detective abilities had just sky-rocketed.

“Held it up to the light,” Gunn admitted. “Hey, I needed to check it wasn’t from Lilah the bitch lawyer from hell. Last thing he needs is her getting at him.”

“No bills? No circulars? No ‘you may have already won ten thousand dollars’?” Angel felt a little miffed.

“Guess he pays his bills by direct debit or something and bothered to fill in one of those forms that means people can’t send you junk mail.”

Angel held one of them up to the light. “Why don’t we get weapons catalogues?”

Cordelia paused in her elegant breeze past to say coolly, “Because I told Wesley he couldn’t have those come here on pain of me kneecapping him with a Bavarian fighting adze.”

“Why?” Angel complained. 

“Because you and Gunn would spend all our meagre income buying cool new weapons if you knew they were out there and available by mail order.”

Gunn took the mail back from Angel. “I’ll just take these up to him. Help him look through them.”

“I manage the finances around here and you’re not ordering any more weapons,” Cordelia warned him.

Angel looked at her reproachfully. “They may have special offers.”

“I don’t care,” Cordelia assured him, before heading off.

 

Angel gave it ten minutes before just happening to wander in the direction of Wesley’s room; the hurt feeling coming back when he looked in through the half open door and found Fred, Gunn and Groo all sitting on Wesley’s bed, having apparently already helped him to eat his breakfast and now being very proactive about assisting him with opening his mail.

“…how come you never told me about these catalogues, English? They’ve got pictures and everything. Look how cool this one is!”

Wesley looked suitably apologetic. “Cordelia threatened to do some very nasty things to me if I did and I never felt it was an empty threat.”

Groo also looked fascinated. “We have a number of these weapons on Pylea although their names are very different. This, for instance, is called a _laksunika_ and this one is a _nergurnak-iknikital_.”

Gunn looked at him sideways. “I gotta say, Groo, I wouldn’t feel too smart calling for one of those in the middle of a battle.”

Fred was avidly reading another catalogue. “Did you know the noise a bullwhip makes is caused by a mini sonic boom?”

“I want a sappara. How come we don’t have a sappara?”

Wesley looked over Gunn’s shoulder. “Because we have a kopesh.”

“So, why don’t we have a shamshir?”

“Because we have a tulwar.” Wesley pointed it out in the catalogue.

“Shamshir sounds cooler.” Gunn turned a page and gasped. “Oh man, will you look at these war axes…?”

Wesley, Fred and Groo all gazed at them with suitable reverence while Gunn got the look of a man who had just fallen in love.

“That one is just so…it’s so…”

Fred peered closer. “Expensive?”

Gunn pointed at the page triumphantly. “Ten percent discount if you buy two weapons at the same time – and free shipping. And look at that – a free tigerclaw with every broadsword.”

Fred brightened. “Is that like a bearclaw? Because I’m still hungry.” She looked guiltily at the empty plate on the tray on Wesley’s lap. “Even though I did kinda…eat everything.”

“It’s a _bagh nakh_ – a favoured weapon of assassins throughout India and the Middle East, an artificial claw, hence its name, easily concealed within the clothing.” Wesley pointed to the entry in the catalogue. “It’s really more of a weapon for a brawl. But I see they’re offering thirty crossbow bolts free with every arbalest. We can never have too many of those.”

“Axes are always useful,” Gunn said emphatically. “Wes, what say you and me wait until Cordelia’s out of earshot and then ask Angel if we can get a new war axe?”

Groo said regretfully, “I cannot be party to any deception that may cause my princess unhappiness.”

“You’re not going to rat us out to Cordy, are you?” Gunn pleaded. 

Unable to bear any longer being left out of what was actually looking like a pretty interesting conversation, Angel cleared his throat. “So, what are we looking at?”

“Wesley’s weapons’ catalogues.” Gunn held one up. “And all the reasons why I need one of these war axes – and I mean yesterday.”

Angel came into the room, aware that everyone was acting a little more awkward as he did so, and also aware that it was totally unfair he should be the one having that effect on people instead of Wesley; what with it being his hotel and all. He sat on the bed next to Fred and held his hand out for a catalogue. Wesley handed him one, looking up at his face as he did so in a way which, after his memory of their first office blowing up, was way too reminiscent of that bespectacled boy always needing to check if Angel was mad at him. 

Angel flicked through the pages. “Maybe we can spring for something. But no more knives for killing Kek demons.”

Wesley looked up at him in surprise, relieved and touched at that reference to a time when it had just been the three of them. He rallied with a conscious imitation of his earlier self. “You know I still say one could be hibernating somewhere.”

“In your dreams. Great falchion.” Angel examined the picture and then winced at the price. “Or maybe I could just get a new wetstone for sharpening the one we already have.”

“Page sixty-two.” Gunn pointed to the entry. “Right next to the really cool two-handed war axes that we so need to buy.”

Angel glanced at the toast crumbs that were all that remained of Wesley’s breakfast. “Did Wesley actually get to eat this or did the rest of you help him out?”

Fred looked guilty. “I may have helped a little – okay, a lot. I don’t always notice right away how much I’m eating if I’m reading. And this conference on crypto-zoology – it looks really interesting.”

“Why are you turning the page?” Gunn demanded of Angel. “The axes are right there.”

“We have axes.”

“Not like that. Look at that one. That is so cool.”

Angel sighed, feeling parental again and rather enjoying it. “Let’s order in some breakfast before Fred goes into hypoglycaemic shock and maybe this time Wesley will actually get to eat some of it. And then see if we really do have any gaps in the weapons cabinet.”

“And research books,” Fred added kindly, evidently seeing Wesley’s wistful expression. “We can always do with those as well.”

“Yeah, sure, but the axe takes priority, right, Angel?”

“One book, two weapons, and only if we really need them. What about magical supplies, Wes?” He tried to make it sound casual, as if everything were okay between them, and though it still came out a little awkward, the look Wesley gave him made it clear that he really appreciated the effort.

“We can always do with twice-blessed sage and chicken feet,” Wesley admitted. “But given the price of shipping it’s not really worth putting in a small order.”

“Okay, make a list of the stuff we use all the time. Check with Lorne. See if he has any suggestions. Gunn, I counted twenty-seven different axes in that catalogue. You get one.”

“Yes!” Gunn punched the air and then seeing everyone looking at him, grimaced. “I just…really want a new axe.”

“What about Ironheart?” Fred asked.

Angel gazed at him. “You _named_ your hubcap axe?”

“No.” Seeing their expressions he said defensively, “Okay, yeah. But it’s not like I called it ‘Gerald’ or something. And I’m just thinking a back up would be a good idea.”

“And you’ll explain that to ‘Ironheart’, will you?” Wesley murmured innocently. “Wouldn’t want you to hurt its feelings.”

Gunn pointed a finger at him. “Yeah, and let’s see how much fun you’re having when I’m kicking your ass at Risk tonight, Mr Irkutsk & Nowhere Else By Nine pm.”

“In Pylea it is also the custom to name one’s weapon,” Groo observed helpfully. “My princess has suggested several titles for mine.”

Angel found that he and everyone else was now looking at Groo’s groin; Fred positively peering as if compelled by forces beyond her control. With a conscious effort Angel looked elsewhere. “Okay – breakfast and then a shopping list.”

“Are you talking about weapons again?” Cordelia demanded, sticking her head around the door.

“Just what you call Groo’s,” Gunn observed innocently.

Cordelia looked at him narrowly, said, “You get one lousy axe and that’s it,” and stalked away.

As Angel watched, a beaming Gunn held up his hand for Wesley to high five it, which, after a fractional hesitation the man did. Gunn grinned at Wesley and then swept Fred into an embrace as he rose to his feet. “Okay, look out Taco Bell, here we come. You want tacos, Wes? Or pancakes? Don’t even try telling me you want oatmeal.”

“Pancakes would be very nice, but…” Wesley looked awkward and Angel knew he was worrying about the money he was costing them.

“Don’t worry, we’re going to make you work it off in research,” he assured him.

Wesley gave a faint smile of relief. “I’d be happy to.”

Angel reached across the bed to snag the notebook and pen and put them into Wesley’s hands. “Ingredients list and one book, remember?”

Wesley nodded and smiled again, less faintly. “Thank you.”

“Hey, I didn’t say it would be an expensive book.” Angel briefly touched his shoulder and then picked up the tray. “And next time Fred brings you breakfast, grab some of it before she does. That girl is a human gannet. Where she puts it is one of the great unanswered questions of our time.” As he headed back downstairs to find Lorne, he realized this was a better way to get through this without feeling hurt and as if his pain was being passed by unnoticed, to try to move on, not without the ever-present sorrow for the son he would always love, but at least in the hope that he could still do some good, and some of that good could perhaps be aimed at the people around him, even Wesley.

***

It had taken him most of the day, but he had achieved his goal. Wesley dressed, slowly and carefully – but he did it without assistance. He put clean clothes that belonged to him on a body he had showered without anyone needing to hold him upright. Okay, after the shower he then had to sit on the edge of the bath and put his head between his legs to stop the sloshing sound in his head, the hissing in his ears. But it was an accomplishment nevertheless. He still ached, muscle ache, deep bruising that must have come perilously close to breaking his bones, contusions still flowering from deep heat to palettes of colour. He had looked at himself in the mirror this morning; made himself look at what was now healing. The bruises really had been _everywhere_ ; as had the cuts, grazes, burns, scratches and welts. Despite the days of healing, he still looked like an ‘after’ photograph from an S&M manual. 

He examined his wrists, tracing the bruises that circled them. They were yellowing finally and the deep cuts had healed to scabbed lines. There was still a bruise on his cheekbone, forehead, and his jaw, but at least both of his eyes opened and his lip was no longer cut. Even though he knew it was irrational he still couldn’t stomach the thought of anything resembling a blade anywhere near his throat and so had used some nail scissors to cut back his beard to a faint dark stubble which did at least blur the bruising on his jaw. He was still having to do a double-take every time he saw himself in the mirror – that vivid wound at his throat making him look like a stranger even without the bruises, the new haircut, the stubble. But he did look tougher. Ironically, if he’d looked like this perhaps Justine might have thought twice about taking him on armed with only a knife.

He was getting vivid flashbacks to what had happened in that other dimension, of course, but the entire experience had been so nightmarish from start to finish that it was surprisingly easy to convince himself that it had never in fact been real. Intellectually, yes, he knew it had happened, but it could easily have been a bad dream he’d had. There were spells that could make a dream have the unfortunate effect of reality – if someone dreamed of death while under its influence, they would die in the dream. Was it so impossible to believe that his spell had made some fear from his darkest psyche manifest – or at least manifest to him? And it wasn’t true. He still knew that. But it was a way of slurring those events, and he found he needed to do that. Opt for a ‘nothing that didn’t happen here matters’ attitude, to get through it. Otherwise he was going to have to spend the rest of his life being someone who had not just lost Angel’s child to a hell dimension and had his throat cut by Justine, but someone who had been brutally tortured by vampires wearing the faces of men who had once been his friends, and he simply wasn’t ready to carry any more baggage right now. He wanted to remove those events from his past; slice them away cleanly as something he could forget. Enough things had happened in this dimension that he was still having to process without dealing with the extreme trauma of alternate worlds.

He had asked Fred to leave his door open earlier so he could listen to the sound of clients coming in and the daily round of Angel Investigations happening downstairs. He might not be well enough to manage the stairs yet, but he liked to feel less cut off from what was happening down there. Throughout the day there had been murmurings of conversation, some laughter, some self-conscious shushing once Fred had admitted to a headache of pyrotechnic intensity, and what had sounded like a client at one point. It had all sounded so reassuringly…normal, and yet Connor was gone and Wesley knew that it must be difficult for Angel to have them all going about their business as if nothing had changed, the baby had never existed. He hoped people were remembering to tell the vampire that they hadn’t forgotten what he’d lost. Wesley certainly never would. Until his dying day he was going to carry the memory of Angel’s expression as he held that baby in his arms and told Wesley how happy Connor made him; knowing that he was the one who had wrecked that happiness forever.

He had heard Fred come upstairs earlier even though it was still only early evening, persuaded by Gunn to try to sleep off the throbbing in her temples; but since then it had been oddly silent down there. It did not say much for the current state of his nerves, that even that perfectly unthreatening quiet was making him uneasy; as if he could close his eyes for a moment and end up back in the wrong dimension. Yes, he definitely needed to start thinking of that place as just a nightmare he’d had. As soon as the bruises had faded completely it would be a great deal easier, of course.

“Pumpkin?”

He looked up to find Lorne standing in his doorway, looking at him critically.

“Yes, Lorne?”

“The fearless demon hunters are out fearlessly demon hunting.”

“I thought it was quiet down there.” He couldn’t help that smile of relief, that there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for the silence.

“Fredikins has the migraine to end all migraines and is lying down in a darkened room. I’m not feeling too well myself – imagine a razor blade wrapped in velvet slicing through cross-sections of the grey matter in time to your heartbeat and you’re halfway there, so I’m going to take a couple of well…bottles of aspirin and lie down for an hour or several myself. Do you need anything first?”

Wesley looked at him in concern. “You don’t think it’s a gas leak, do you?”

“I think it’s more likely to be mystical, cherry pie. Could be an aftershock from that pentagram His Broodiness painted on the floor. The hotel is still trying to get over that little debacle. Or it could be that last client who dropped in. When an empath demon hits ‘transmit’ instead of ‘receive’ and has a nest of Glurgs barring his sewer access… Well, I think the pot was calling the kettle black when he said that we were sending out a bad vibe.”

“Can empath demons transmit?” Wesley was intrigued.

“Some strains can. If they don’t sleep for worrying about the Glurgs in their backyard, for instance, and think the best way to get through a crisis is to crank up the alcohol intake.” Lorne looked at the glass in his hand. “Immoderate consumption, of course.”

Wesley hid a smile. “Oh, of course. Are Angel and Gunn off dealing with the Glurg problem?”

“Angel, Gunn, Groo and Her Demon Glowiness. I warned her about the serious pus factor she was going to be looking at but would she listen? No. All fired up to be Cordelia, Warrior Princess. Groo’s not helping with all the admiring ‘oh fire of my loins’ looks every time she picks up something big and pointy. Can you keep a listen out for clients and come and tap on my door if anyone dings the bell downstairs?”

Wesley nodded. “Of course, Lorne. Is Fred…? You don’t think it’s meningitis, do you?”

Lorne gave him a pitying look. “Tell me, do you and Gunn time-share the same paranoia? You know, sometimes a headache is just a headache. Talking of which…” He clutched a hand to his forehead. “I really need to go and lie down.”

It was perhaps an hour later or a little less when Wesley heard the telephone ringing. He was halfway across the room before it occurred to him that he couldn’t really do this; but the thought of how bad a headache both Fred and Lorne must have to admit defeat and take to their beds made him want to still the ringing of the bell before it dragged them out of sleep. He found himself clutching the banister and essaying the stairs while the phone rang and rang; a noise that grew louder with every stair he managed to struggle down. Sweat began to pour down his back halfway down, a combination of fear and his body reacting to exertion it was out of practise at coping with. He gripped the banister harder but the stairs seemed endless for a while and the possibility of blacking out and just plummeting to the bottom more and more pressing. The ringing of the telephone gained in urgency the longer it went on also, adding to the feeling of tension in the air which he could feel twanging at his temples as he landed, flat-footed, breathless, and shaking, in the lobby of the Hyperion. Then there was the endless expanse of floor to cross before he could lean against the desk and snatch at the phone, managing a breathless: “Angel Investigations?”

“Good lord, Wesley, is that you?”

It was a shock to hear Giles’ voice. Wesley shrunk inside immediately; knowing a lecture must be about to follow. “Yes, Giles. How can I help you?”

“You can start by telling me how you are?”

“A lot better, thank you.” Wesley paused awkwardly. “And yourself? How are you?”

“Very relieved to hear your voice. I was afraid Angel had buried you under the floorboards and was stalling me.”

Wesley straightened up. “Angel has been very…forgiving. Given what I did to him…”

“You were trying to stop him becoming the murderer of his own child.”

“Whatever my intentions, the result of my actions was disastrous for Angel, Connor, and everyone here. Given the circumstances I don’t think anyone could have been more magnanimous than Angel.”

“Did he or did he not attempt to suffocate you in the hospital?”

“He’d just seen his child carried into a hell dimension by his sworn enemy, Giles. I think his reaction was understandable.”

“Are you calling from Los Angeles or Stepford? And do you know how worried I’ve been?”

Wesley found Giles’ exasperation difficult to deal with. His own emotions were too tangled for him to be able to deal with the raw cheese-grater impact of another’s. He cast around for words, stumbling a little: “Sorry, Giles. I – didn’t know you were concerned. If I had I would… I should have written, but this is the first time I’ve been downstairs since… Since I came back here.”

“You do know you were a bloody fool to cast that spell, don’t you?”

“I admit that it wasn’t one of my brighter ideas.”

“Quite apart from how you were nearly killed, you opened a gateway between this dimension and one with which we were never meant to have any contact. You weakened the walls between two worlds which should never meet.”

“I won’t be trying it again.” Wesley eased himself into a chair, legs still feeling like jelly from his recent exertions. “Connor is gone. I recognize that. I lost him and I can’t get him back. There is no…reversal for this particular sin. I just have to live with it and the consequences of it. Like Angel. Like Faith.”

“You’re not a murderer, Wesley,” Giles said gravely. “They chose to take human lives. You were trying to save one.”

“But the end result was the same.”

Giles sighed. “Perhaps we can continue this conversation either when I arrive with Willow or perhaps back in England…?”

“I won’t be going to England.” That sounded as panicked as he felt. Wesley softened it by adding: “But it would always be a pleasure to see you and Willow.”

“What’s left for you in LA?” Giles demanded.

“People I want to do my part in trying to keep safe.”

“What? Angel lets you stay in a broom closet and throws you scraps three times a week while you say ten Hail Marys a day and beg him for forgiveness?”

“Actually they bought me Frank Cooper’s Oxford marmalade, and English Breakfast tea. And need I remind you that Angel has been keeping me since I crawled back from that other dimension.”

Another sigh from Giles. “I wish you’d reconsider, Wesley, I really do. I’ve never been happy about your role in LA. If Angel wants to try to work off his redemption, I can only admire his dedication to the cause of humanity and his genuine desire to make amends for some of the things he did. But you and Cordelia have nothing to atone for.”

“We feel we can do some good,” Wesley told him gravely. “And that’s what we want – all of us here – to try to do some good.” He felt frustrated by how much he and Giles were not communicating. That was their role in life, after all. They were linguists. They spent their time translating, researching, discovering information that could be the difference between life and death to a vulnerable invulnerable champion and finding a way to communicate that information in terms the champion could understand. Yet, here they were entirely failing to find the right words to make their feelings known. That had always been a problem for him and Giles and if one of them didn’t do something about it, it always would. 

He snatched a deep breath and plunged awkwardly into the truth: “Giles – these people are my family. When I lost them. When I took Connor. No, before then, when I knew I was going to have to take Connor, that it was one possible option and the one that was going to suck me in like a black hole I couldn’t avoid. It was like being dead. You don’t know what it’s like to have been – unimportant to everyone you’ve ever met since…forever. And then have people show you – warmth and friendship and respect and affection, and know you’re going to lose it. And lose it. And have the person you owe everything to be the one you’ve wronged the most and who…hates you now. If I leave here, I…”

“I understand.” Giles sounded gentle; so unlike himself. “Wesley, it’s all right. I understand now.”

“He and Cordelia were so kind to me. They took me in and trusted me and I betrayed them…” The water spattering onto his hand was a shock. Wesley hadn’t intended to cry about any of this; especially not to Giles; one of those authority figures he was still hoping one day to impress. The man would be able to hear that he was crying, his voice was tremulous with tears.

“You didn’t betray anyone. You just made a mistake. You had to make a choice, Wesley. You tried to do the right thing and it didn’t work out. And I’m very sorry for all of you – Angel and you and everyone who loved that baby – that it didn’t work out as you hoped it would. But it wasn’t a betrayal. Not by any reading of that word that I recognize.”

Embarrassed by his own weakness, Wesley wiped his eyes on his sleeve, seeing that he hadn’t buttoned the cuff properly, that his wrist was visible, the ring of fading bruises where the ropes had bitten deep. “She said I was Judas Iscariot.”

“Cordelia?”

“Lilah Morgan from Wolfram & Hart.”

“Do you need a holiday, Wesley? I understand you want to go on working with Angel in LA. I do understand that now. But would it help to go somewhere else for a little while? Somewhere that doesn’t look exactly like the place where…? You had to wrestle with that decision and where you were…”

Their Englishness would never be able to bridge the gap of what had been done to him. Wesley wondered who had told Giles and how much he’d been told. If Angel had punished Giles for his interference by spelling it out. His own voice sounded hoarse and faint, a stranger’s voice, pleading for permission: “I want to stay here.”

“We’ll come to you. Willow and I. Tomorrow. Is Angel there?”

“He’s out on a case. He’ll be back soon.” He hadn’t meant to say it so wistfully. The throbbing in his head was getting worse. It couldn’t be the residue from that visiting demon; it must be something in the hotel; or something near the hotel. 

“Can you ask him to call me? When he gets back? To confirm that it’s all right for Willow and I to come up tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow?” The panic spiked briefly at the thought of Giles seeing him, while the bruises were still there to tell their story. “Why so soon?”

“You may have an open door to another dimension. We need to close it. In view of what’s in that dimension, I feel it should be sooner rather than later. In fact, don’t bother getting him to call us, he won’t. We’ll just turn up.”

Wesley thought of what had been waiting for him in that other world; what they had told him they had done to Cordelia and Fred. Perhaps Anne would have been tricked by them. Oh God, Virginia. They could lure people into that place. Clients. So much cruelty in them both; such pleasure in inflicting pain, an insatiable appetite for chaos.

“If we close it we can’t stop them.” He snatched a breath. “If there’s a way to stop them – don’t you think we should?”

“They’re not our problem.” Giles spoke firmly. “There is a Buffy and a Watchers’ Council and a Rupert Giles in that dimension who are aware of the problem and can solve it themselves.”

“The Giles there is looking after a Wesley who has to be sedated. He can’t be left. They broke him into very small pieces. I imagine he’s something of a full time job for the people in Sunnydale.” 

Angelus had described to him in great detail the process of the other Wesley’s nervous breakdown, but he had found himself imagining him like the Angel in Cordelia’s vision; the one where she had visited that other possible life in which her happiness had come at the price of Angel’s sanity and his left arm. A wrecked mind scrabbling for some pitiful remnants of clarity; a fragmented life viewed through a chill blue lens. By the end, Angelus had said, whispering it softly in Wesley’s ear, he’d felt so tender towards him; his masterwork; had murmured sweet nothings in his ear before he bit gently into the soft vulnerability of his slender throat. He’d licked Wesley’s mouth afterwards so he could taste his own ebbing life, holding him against his body, that tantalizing warmth of thin-skinned human with the blood pulsing just beneath the surface inviting him to lick and bite and drink. The sweet trusting Wesley who had set him free. They’d drunk from him over and over but never let him sink too far; although he’d begged them to just let him slip into quiet darkness; they’d always pulled their fangs out in time and licked the blood from the puncture wounds, using their saliva to seal up the flow of blood. Like having your head held under water, Wesley supposed, shown death, taken to the brink; exposed to the raw nerve of your own terror and then yanked back, knowing the nerve was going to be scraped again and again and again.

“Then they know the full extent of the evil of which those two vampires are capable and they should respond accordingly.” There was something utterly implacable about Giles when he was in this mood. “Our obligation is to protect this world. Not to save all possible worlds from their own tragedies. Wesley, ask Angel if it’s all right for Willow and I to visit tomorrow. Tell him that if I don’t hear anything to the contrary we’ll be with him by lunchtime. And now I suggest you go and get some rest. You sound tired.” There was a pause before Giles sighed and added, “No one is going to take you away from the Hyperion, I promise. We just need to close the gateway and then we’ll go again and we’ll leave you with your friends.”

“I’ll tell Angel.” Wesley waited for Giles to replace his receiver first and then slowly put down his own.

“Tell him what, sweetpea?”

Wesley looked up to find Lorne coming towards him, a hand still pressed to his head. Wesley winced. “Is that where I…?”

Lorne looked at him in confusion for a moment before his face cleared. “Good grief, no. Are we guilt-tripping for Jesus tonight, handsome? This skewer in the brain headache has nothing to do with a month old concussion and everything to do with something being badly out of alignment in the mystical ionosphere around here.”

Wesley grimaced. “That may be my fault. Giles says I may have weakened the barrier between this world and that – other dimension. There could be some spillage. He and Willow are coming here tomorrow to deal with it.”

Lorne put a hand back to his head. “That could explain a lot. But, cupcake, how about you try to remove the words ‘my fault’ from your vocabulary for say…a month? Not asking the impossible here, just a thirty day moratorium on self-flagellation.”

“But I…” Wesley broke off at a very straight look from those red eyes. “Won’t finish that sentence.”

Lorne beamed at him. “Now, see, that’s what I…” He broke off as they both felt something ripple through the hotel; Lorne clutching violently at his head in response.

Wesley staggered and caught at the counter top to hold himself upright, then looked at Lorne who was stumbling backwards, still holding his head.

“It’s not an earthquake, is it?” Wesley felt the floor ripple, an epicentre with aftershocks, but an earthquake wouldn’t have Lorne reeling in pain like that. “Something mystical. Something…” As Lorne straightened up, still pressing the heel of his hand to his forehead, Wesley heard it, the sound of something downstairs in the basement. His heart turned over but his brain become abruptly clearer than it had in weeks. He felt as if it had just been slashed with a knife and the sting of it clarified everything. He caught Lorne by the shoulders and whispered rapidly: “Go upstairs. Get Fred out by the fire escape. I’ll stall them.”

Lorne’s eyes widened in comprehension and then horror. “Wesley, come with me.”

“I can’t walk that far.” Wesley gave him a little shove. “Please, Lorne. Just get Fred out of here.”

Lorne gazed at him for one more second and then at another sound from downstairs, he turned and sprinted silently up the stairs.

Heart hammering, Wesley stumbled over to the banquette in the middle of the lobby and sat on it. He could feel the air crackling; a thickness to the atmosphere, as if there were a storm in the hotel with him and he sat just beneath the cloud bank; not so much magic as inevitability. He had always known that he would be required to pay for what he’d done. Everyone seemed to think it was enough that he’d had his throat cut and to have suffered as he had at the hands of the Angelus and the vampire Gunn but he had never quite been able to believe that he should only be required to pay with pain and near-death for what he’d done. Abandonment, rejection, becoming an outcast; that had felt more appropriate; but there had been the fear that taking Connor would have to be paid for with the lives of Fred and Cordelia. That was the compulsion that had made him huddle outside the Hyperion waiting to see them or someone who could tell him if they still lived. But now he’d been taken back into the fold did that mean that a new price had to be exacted? By forgiving him had Fred and Cordy damned themselves to the same terrible death as their counterparts in the other dimension? 

He had to prevent that somehow. There must be a way. He was physically close to helpless right now, but there was nothing wrong with his mind. He needed to find a way to reason or scheme his way out of this.

It was only later that it occurred to him how strange it was that he had never doubted for an instant who was coming up those stairs. It could have been the Angel he knew coming back from that Glurg hunt; could have been Groo and Gunn and Cordy all spattered with demon pus and arguing about how long the hot water would stand up if they all bathed at the same time. But it wasn’t.

He raised his head as the basement door opened and the fear went straight through him. As if someone had rammed an icicle into the back of his neck and the chill had gone into his spine. He’d forgotten the fear. Odd that. It had been such an important part of his captivity. Feeling terrified all the time. Of pain, of death, of being turned, of fear itself. But perhaps it was a good thing; one of those things you couldn’t fake in front of a vampire because they needed to smell it on you, hear your accelerated heartbeat as you looked up and saw them, the things out of your nightmares, with those horrible smiles on their still-human faces. So, yes, this was something to be grateful for, the way that as Angelus and Gunn began to walk towards him, his body tried to turn itself inside out; because although he wasn’t moving; his spine and his kidneys and his skin all wanted to be somewhere else and were trying to slither away and leave him and his trembling legs behind.

“Wes, Wes, Wes…” A dazzling smile from Angelus. “Well, look at that. Here you are again and now Gunn owes me first go with the next virgin we find because he bet me you wouldn’t be able to sit down for a month.” Angelus didn’t come over to him at first, moving gracefully to the front desk, all his weight so perfectly balanced, like a prey animal confident of the kill, with all the time in the world to enjoy the chase, the capture, the hot warm succulence of jugular blood. He stood something on the desk, something small and box-like and silver but Wesley couldn’t get it into focus, the world was receding to a small circle of light in the centre of his vision and Angelus was occupying all available space. He was having trouble breathing around the hyperventilation; his heart hammering so fast no amount of oxygen could keep up. Not fainting was the real challenge because he couldn’t stall them while he was unconscious. 

Gunn gave him a nasty smile. “Have to see what we can do about that sitting down thing. Can’t have you making me look inadequate.”

Which was when the lightbulb went off in Wesley’s head; not much of a bulb, really, more of a forty watt illumination, perhaps even one solitary Christmas light, but something to break the short circuit between his terror, his brain and his mouth. Angelus nodded at the stairs and said to vampire Gunn, “Go and look upstairs. See if you can’t find something juicy for us to share.” Which was when the all-engulfing fear of them finding Fred managed to overwhelm his brain-paralysing instinctive and learned fear of the two vampires who had tortured him for so many endless hours before, and that small illumination jolted the right words into his mouth.

“It’s really the other Gunn that makes you look inadequate.”

There, it was said. Words scraped out of the lodged place in his throat, and thanks to that new hoarse lower timbre his voice had post-throat-slash, it didn’t even sound as if he were terrified. He sounded almost calm, in fact. Reflective.

Gunn stopped in his tracks, his foot not even touching the first stair as he turned around with a really ugly look on his face. It was difficult to believe someone as handsome as Gunn could even wear that expression, but the vampire version could. Wesley felt that calm which he’d also forgotten about; the one that followed the brain-jamming fear; the terror static flickered through him like a lightning flash and then there was the moment of stillness afterwards when the terror underwent a brief evolution into the centre of the whirlwind. It was the pockets of calm that helped you reason and the spasms of terror that helped you stay alive; either because it galvanized you into the risk-taking actions necessary to escape or because the smell of the fear on you was so intoxicating that the vampires draining you didn’t want to give it up and pulled their fangs out, as if your death was an orgasm they didn’t quite want to reach.

“What you sayin’?” Gunn swaggered towards him, angry and threatening.

Angelus was grinning. That was their flaw, of course, the reason why vampires never worked well together, because most of them couldn’t feel loyalty or affection, and in Angelus’ case he just liked the air fizzle that came from strong emotion, anger and humiliation or fear or pain; even if it were an ally feeling it, it was still a buzz for him.

Wesley moistened his lips, snatching a needed breath, something to slow the hammer of his heart.

“It surprised me – at the time, I mean. I always assumed vampires had more stamina than humans. Not less.”

Angelus snorted. “Oh, Wes, you are so going to regret saying that to Chuck here.”

Wesley ignored Angelus because Angelus wouldn’t go upstairs and look for Fred; not when there was a show right here to hold his interest; and Gunn wouldn’t go upstairs while someone was challenging him who needed to be punished for it. That was something Angel and Gunn both had – even the good versions – the alpha male thing that could be tapped into, sometimes. Wesley had always tried to be tactful about it, with Gunn, to make it clear that he understood that Gunn was making a concession when he took orders from Wesley; that it didn’t make Wesley better or Gunn lesser, they were just allotted roles they had taken on to do with their individual skills. Wesley had the research and strategy know-how so he would decide on their plan of attack but once they were in the field, Gunn was the one who would probably have to deliver the killing blow, the one who had the superior height and strength and speed. It wasn’t discussed, it was just accepted by them both, without the need for muscle flexing. He couldn’t imagine challenging Gunn like this, just throwing an inadequacy in his face, because you couldn’t be male and not know where you fitted into a group of other males, strength and speed wise, and he was weaker and slower than both Angel and Gunn; he didn’t need to delude himself about that any more, not the way he had done in the past. Angel had demonstrated it to him on their first meeting in LA, the lion slapping down the cheeky cub, but then turning around and shoving the cub behind him when the first aggressor turned up. So, he would never have thrown down a challenge to Gunn unless he was prepared to take the consequences, and know that they would probably be physical and painful. 

This Gunn was different, because this Gunn didn’t have any compassion for him or a sense of fair play, or that sweetness that was in the human Gunn that gave him that boyish smile and made him so gentle with Fred; that had made him, in the past, be very gentle with Wesley too. Wesley flinched inside and blocked that; hating to do this to their friendship, to turn it into something Gunn would probably be disgusted by, but knowing that this might at least stall the vampire Gunn for long enough to let Lorne get away with Fred. It was such a long trip, though, that was the problem. All those clunky metal echoing stairs to get down to end up twenty feet away from where Angelus was right now.

Wesley shrugged, averting his gaze. “It just surprised me. But then when I thought about the biology of it afterwards, it made sense. With the blood in your bodies being entirely borrowed, it’s probably inevitable that you can’t stay hard for as long as a human.”

Gunn loomed over him, eyes colder than hate. “You want to say that to me again, you snivelling little fuck? Maybe I should give you something to jolt your memory because you seem to be forgetting just how many times I made you squeal.”

Wesley swallowed hard, forcing his voice to stay even: “The lack of imagination was a surprise as well. I always found the Gunn in this dimension extremely…inventive. Whereas you…” He shrugged as gracefully as he could. “Well, it’s not really my place to criticize. I’m sure as mass murdering rapists go, you and Angelus are probably in the top ten percentile of your graduating class, but it did seem strange that an ordinary human with a soul could find all those different ways to make me lose consciousness just through…skill.”

Angelus whistled. “Well, well, well, Wes and Gunn from bizarro world sitting in a tree F-U-C-K-I-N-G.”

Wesley knew if he looked at Angelus the fear was going to make him trip, stumble, something in his brain short circuit again, but although vampire Gunn was frightening he wasn’t quite as bad. He answered Angelus without looking his way. “Not in trees. Too risky. But in his truck. And my apartment. And once in that little room downstairs where the janitor used to keep his mop and bucket... And, as I said, Gunn’s stamina was really extraordinarily impressive. Now, when he decided to fuck me, I really knew I’d been fucked.”

Gunn grabbed him by the shirt and yanked him forward. “And you knew it when I was doing you, too. Maybe your memory’s playing up? Is that it? Maybe I should remind you what you seem to be forgetting, right now. Like how I made you scream so loud your throat would bleed…”

Angelus grinned. “You’re so impatient, Gunn. We’re going to take Wesley back home with us and play with him all over again. You really need to christen this couch too?”

“Not the couch.” Gunn’s face changed, ridged brow, yellow eyes. “Maybe over the front desk.”

Wesley thought he heard something upstairs or outside, or perhaps it was just a manifestation of his own throttling fear that he was going to have to go through what that other Wesley had been forced to endure, and see Fred killed right in front of him; listen to her screaming for hours, murdered by people with the faces of men she trusted. The Gunn who was perhaps her first real love and the Angel who had been the knight without shining armour who had saved her from the monsters. No. Anything was better than that. He kicked out with everything he had, catching Gunn high up on the inside of his thigh, clipping his testicles with his heel in a way that was probably more painful than direct contact.

Gunn howled with pain and fury and Wesley threw himself at the weapons cabinet, not even because he truly believed there was any chance of getting there before them, but because it was the noisiest thing in the room, and if he could just yank some of those axes out…

Angelus was there before him; that terrifying vampire speed; smiling at him from in front of the weapons cabinet, shaking a finger at him in mild reproach. Wesley did the only thing he could do and threw himself at him, slamming the vampire into the glass. All sleight of hand and desperate sleight of hand at that; trying to keep them here, deafened to those sounds that their superior hearing might otherwise be able to pick up of Lorne’s shoes on the metal fire escape. It didn’t matter because the glass smashed and the weapons fell down; a glorious clatter of metal and glass; feeding the echoes of the Hyperion’s perfect acoustics. 

Angelus grabbed him by the shirt and flung him away from him, Wesley skidding across the floor to slam into the front desk. Gunn pounced on him like a terrier on a rat, grabbing him by the scruff of the neck to throw him back at the weapons cabinet. A stupid thing to do, but vampires were mostly pretty stupid. That was what had made Darla and Angelus so dangerous; the way their human cunning had outlived the loss of their souls. Wesley snatched up an axe and Angelus backhanded him extravagantly, sending Wesley spinning in one direction and the axe in the other, but not actually breaking his neck. He slammed into Gunn’s legs this time, and found himself gazing up at that fanged face.

“That was dumb,” Angelus told his companion. “Don’t throw the human into the weapons rack. It’s elementary.”

“Do they have a whip in this dimension?” Gunn asked coldly.

“Didn’t see one.” Angelus still sounded cheerful, but he was crunching over broken glass, which was good as it was more noise; more of that covering fire Fred and Lorne needed to make their getaway. “Got a nice flail though. That should peel off his skin nice and slow. Or the handle’s a good shape for…” Angel smirked at Wesley. “Actually lots of things are a good shape for that. Good length too. Tell me, did the Gunn in this dimension measure up a little longer too? Or thicker? Or was it just…”

Wesley licked the blood from his lip. “What he did with what he has. Yes, more that really.”

He was yanked to his feet so fast his stomach felt as if it were still on the floor while he was upright. Gunn growled ominously: “This time I get to go first. And by the time I’ve done with him he’s going to be begging you to kill him.” Wesley felt Gunn’s hand on his belt buckle and couldn’t help the bone deep shudder of horror at being back in this place, being touched like this again, because this time the panic was inside him like a virus; every cell in his body seeming to remember at once that it couldn’t take this again; couldn’t bear to be touched in those places…

“Where do you want it?” Gunn snarled at him. “Over the desk? How about at the foot of the stairs? Or maybe I’ll just do you here…” He slammed Wesley down across the banquette. “The acoustics are good here. When Cordy was screaming in the lobby I swear I could hear it all the way up…”

“Fuck!” Angelus’s eyes turned gold and he turned on Wesley with a snarl of his newly ridged face. “Little girls upstairs, are they?”

Gunn yanked Wesley’s head up. “Were you trying to stall, you worthless little shit?”

Angelus was already marching towards the staircase. “This time you don’t just have to watch, Watcher. This time I’m going to make you fuck them too…”

“Or you could die.”

Wesley twisted his head round with difficulty, shock coursing through him, as he hadn’t even for a moment thought there was any possibility of rescue for him, only a slender chance of escape for Lorne and Fred. 

“Oh wait,” Gunn continued evenly – the human Gunn with no brow ridge and brown human eyes that right now were looking cold with anger. The Gunn with a crossbow pointed straight at the vampire holding Wesley down. “You’re already dead. My mistake. Guess that means killing you doesn’t count as murder – just my good deed for the day.”

And there was Angel standing next to Gunn, black coat rippling in the faint breeze they’d brought in with them from the outside world; a long shining sword in his hand that could look as phallic as it liked, Wesley was still extremely pleased to see him and it. “Now get the hell away from Wesley and just maybe I’ll give you a ten second start to get back home.”

The vampire Gunn bared his teeth and pulled Wesley in front of his body. “I’ll snap his neck.”

Angel swung the sword, a few swishes through the air that made it sing along the blade. “The only way you get out of this dimension in anything except a dustpan is if you let him go, right now.”

Gunn’s attention was focused on his vampire counterpart. “You have no idea how much I want to kill you, do you?”

“You didn’t like me sharing your little fuck-toy?” Gunn sneered and tightened his grip on Wesley’s throat. “Come upstairs now and we can take turns with him.”

“I know _you_ want to,” Angelus purred to Angel. “I mean, why wouldn’t you? You’ve had enough ass in your day to recognize a good one. But you wouldn’t believe how clueless the one in my dimension was. All those years at boarding school and he didn’t know a damned thing. That’s why mine was better. He was all sweet and new and fresh and innocent. Not so worn out as yours. Not that yours wasn’t tight too. I never would have known about him and Chuck. But, unlike yours, mine trusted me. Okay – not me, exactly, but the soul boy with the keys to my cell. Know what let me out?”

Angel and Gunn were moving carefully, blocking the exit to the front but advancing as Angelus and Gunn backed up. Wesley was pretty sure that even with his vampire speed and strength, vampire Gunn couldn’t make it to the door to the basement before Angel could get there, not encumbered by a hostage. He would know that too. Which would mean he probably would snap Wesley’s neck. Which was still much better than getting taken back to their dimension.

“Tell me,” said Angel conversationally. “I’m curious.”

“Wes did. Soul Boy was already dangerously near the brink. Thought the Powers had forgiven him because there was that baby all perfect and human and going to be the saviour of the world. And didn’t he love his big sappy fantasy of the perfect family gathered all around him. All those people he’d saved. Cordy and her visions she was keeping just for him because she believed in him and that was so special – yeah right, a cheerleader thinks you’re the champion of the universe and that means something? Does getting a soul just wipe out half the IQ points? Oh yes, and there was Gunn rescued from his deathwish. The guy who hated all vampires but he was working for Angel – didn’t that just prove how special Angel was? And sweet little Fredikins saved from the big bad scary horned jobs on Pylea. Handsome man who saved her from the monsters. She had the crush to end all crushes. And then there was Wesley – the Watcher who turned down the Council because he believed in Angel and his redemption. An educated man; trained since birth not to trust vampires and yet… He believed in Angel so completely that when he translated a prophecy that said Angel was going to eat the wailing brat in the crib next door he couldn’t bring himself to believe it. He did all this cross-referencing and got shamans to throw their chicken bones around and talked to the big scary Loa, and they all told him the same thing – that he had to snatch the brat or it was going to end up as vamp chowder. And he was almost going to do it, too, but then he spent one last evening with Angel. The bestest champion that had ever lived who’d taken in poor hungry little Wesley from the streets and trained him and fed him and never even made him give him one solitary blow-job in compensation even though – if someone could just draw Wes a diagram of what a blow-job actually was – Wes would really have liked to give him one. Or anything at all because he had the sweetest most innocent little crush a schoolgirl ever had on his noble champion boss. And, of course, once Wesley saw Angel with his wailing snot-nosed baby and heard how much Angel wuvved the puking mewling little brat and how he was so happy that he had him, Wesley just couldn’t bring himself to do the terrible deed.”

Angel flinched; eyes closing briefly while Wesley winced in vampire Gunn’s grip.

“Wesley told you.” Angel briefly lowered his sword. “Told the Angel you were before – the one in your dimension – about the prophecy.”

“Yes, he did.” Angelus grinned in delight. “And oh dear – too much happiness – knowing that the last piece was in place and his dear little friend trusted him completely and there was now nothing that could ever come between him and his darling baby son…Except me. Oh yum – baby blood, nothing like it. Remember how that tasted? And the smell of their neck just before you bite in…” Angelus licked his lips theatrically. “Kept Wesley alive though. I’m not the unreasonable type and he had just broken me out of jail. Not sure he was really grateful though. Even though I taught him so many fun new games…”

Wesley kept his eyes closed because he knew what Angel was thinking; about the dumb wide-eyed Wesley who’d first arrived in LA, from whom this Wesley now felt so separated that he could almost think of him as a separate entity. A separate entity Angelus had tortured and raped and driven mad.

“You’re going to die, you sick fuck,” Gunn said hoarsely. “And this time you’re going to stay dead.”

Wesley opened his eyes in surprise and saw the murderous look on Gunn’s face. That was the reckless look he got sometimes when he’d just rush in because he wanted to spill demon guts or dust a vampire. “Charles…” he warned.

Vampire Gunn smirked at his human counterpart nastily. “Yeah, Charles, better stay away or I’ll make your boyfriend pay. And pay. And pay. Don’t you love the way his spine arches when you drive into him in one deep hard stroke…? Bet he used to scream when you did that too…”

Gunn levelled his crossbow. “Keep talking, fangboy. It’s just going to make sweeping you up off the floor later that much less of a chore.”

“We’re going now,” Angelus said coolly. “And we’re taking your Watcher with us. Although I have to ask, Gunn, before I go – did you get off on his scar? Because I got to tell you – turned me the hell on all right; the way you can work your tongue in there and lick and lick. Maybe that didn’t do it for you as much as his tight little… but, Angel, buddy, I just know it was making your rod want to conduct a recital. Think about that when I’m…” 

Angelus exploded into a swirl of dust. Wesley gaped at the place beside the vampire holding him in disbelief, because he’d been watching Angel and Gunn the whole time and Gunn’s finger hadn’t moved on his crossbow and Angel was still holding that sword and…

Vampire Gunn spun around, still holding Wesley in front of him as a human shield against this new threat. Wesley’s heart flip-flopped painfully in his chest as he saw Cordelia, Fred, and Lorne all holding crossbows; the two women both reloading. Cordelia said coolly, “That was for the Cordelia and Fred in your dimension, scumbag.”

Then the Gunn holding him jolted at some impact and Wesley was suddenly breathing in dust. And falling. Backwards. As he toppled over he realized that human Gunn must have just killed the vampire version of himself with a perfectly placed crossbow bolt through the back straight into the heart and he was now falling through his dust. Wesley tensed in readiness, squeezing his eyes closed for the impact with the floor and then he felt strong arms gripping him and Angel saying, “I’ve got you.”

He opened his eyes and stared up into the vampire’s face in disbelief. Angel smiled at him gently and said again, “I’ve got you, Wes.”

Wesley smiled back, seeing a blurry Gunn looming up somewhere very far away as the ocean rolled into some place around the back of his head. “I have to pass out now,” he said apologetically, and then everything was blissfully quiet for a while.

 

Wesley woke up to find himself still in the lobby of the Hyperion, now transferred to the banquette, still being held by Angel and with Gunn gazing at him anxiously. 

“He’s back…” Gunn took his hand and squeezed it gently. “How are you doing, English?”

“Oh, fine, thank you.” Wesley tried to sit up and Angel and Gunn helped him to do so. He blinked in confusion and looked around the lobby. The first odd thing was the sight of Fred in knitting needle-heeled shoes of impossible impracticality in which she was deliberately stomping backwards and forwards on what appeared to be the contents of a Hoover bag. “Um, why is…?”

“She’s just being vengeful,” Angel explained. “I think Cordy lent her the shoes.”

Wesley noticed that Cordelia was holding a broom in one hand and the nozzle of a vacuum cleaner in the other. “So, which do you think would be the most demeaning way to have someone handle your ashes?” she enquired. “Swept or sucked?”

“I was gonna piss on them,” Gunn admitted. “But Lorne thought it was unsanitary.”

“And it would be – as well as being unworthy of you. Here you go, sugarplum – painkillers for that brand new vampire smackdown you received and a nice hot cup of tea.” 

Wesley turned his head to find Lorne proffering two white tablets and a bone china cup. He took both automatically. “Um – thank you.”

“Well, thank you, crumpet, for the whole heroic stalling of the bad guys while I got myself and Fredilicious to safety. Luckily, our fearless demon hunters were just returning from their pus-a-thon with the Glurgs and so were in place to lend a helping hand.”

Fred beamed at Wesley from mid-stomp. “We were the real rescue committee. Gunn and Angel were the diversion.”

“They were very…diverting,” Wesley admitted.

“Betcha didn’t know we were there until evil ass went all dustbunny, did you?” 

“I was as surprised as he was.”

Cordelia leant the broom against a pillar and beamed at him. “See, for standing around looking all menacing and keeping the bad guys talking, Angel and Gunn are just dandy, but when you need some real vampire slaying done, you gotta go for the feminine touch.”

In light of his hereditary calling as a Watcher to just such a Slayer, not to mention recent events, Wesley could hardly argue with that. “Well, thank you. I’m very grateful for the rescue.”

Cordelia gave him another dazzling smile. “You’re welcome.”

Fred stomped a little more while Wesley watched her deliberately grinding her tiny pointy heels into the dust. There was something hypnotic about it and he noticed that Angel had to give himself a little shake before he could look away as well. “How are you feeling?” the vampire enquired.

“Oh, quite well, really. All things considered. Particularly pleased about the not being dragged back to another dimension to be horribly tortured part of the proceedings.” Wesley would have said more but he noticed what Gunn was holding in his hand and felt a wave of dismay wash over him. He straightened up, murmuring, “Oh dear…”

Gunn held up the mini video camera which Angelus had placed on the front desk, presumably to record their kidnap of their runaway victim. He looked very ominous.

“Gunn, I…” He swallowed quickly, darting a glance at Fred, and adding in a rapid undertone: “I hope you won’t be offended by what I… I was trying to stall and…”

Gunn grinned at him. “Offended? I already made ten copies and mailed them to my nearest and dearest. Ain’t every day someone tells the world I’ve got more stamina in the sack than an evil dead vampire.”

As Wesley evidently blanched in horror, Gunn sighed. “Joke, Wes. I’m not offended and I didn’t tell anyone. But I will be keeping this video in case I need it. Because I’m thinking you wouldn’t want me to show this to some girl you were trying to impress or mailing it to your Aunty Flo.”

“However did you guess…?” Wesley murmured faintly. He darted another glance at the man, wincing apologetically. “I really am sorry for what I said.”

Gunn slapped him lightly on the shoulder. “Hey, you were saving my girl. You could have told them I ate live newts for all I care if it kept them the hell away from her.”

Wesley blinked in confusion. “You think that’s worse?”

“Sure. That’s…ewww. Doing you really well and often in lots of places around the hotel – kind of sleazy, but also sort of cool.”

Wesley looked at him sideways. “I can’t tell if you have hidden depths or hidden shallows. Either way I think you’re scaring me a little.”

Gunn held up the tape again. “One thing I have to ask you though, Wes. What was Plan B?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t…?”

“Plan A was obviously – stall the Evil Dead until Lorne could get Fred out of the hotel. What was Plan B? You know, the part of the plan that stopped you getting dragged back to that other dimension by Vampy and Skanky?”

Wesley frowned at him. “I don’t know what you…”

Gunn sighed. “You know, I’d love to think the reason you had no Plan B was because you had so much faith in us playing the seventh cavalry and saving your skinny white ass in the nick of time. But I just know it was because you didn’t think that it mattered what happened to you as long as Lorne and Fred were okay.”

“Well…” Wesley couldn’t see the point in denying it. “Yes, but…”

Angel and Gunn sighed and exchanged a long look. Angel shrugged. “Looks like we’re back to the drawing board with this project.”

Gunn nodded. “Better get those old blueprints out and start over.”

“Start what?” Wesley wondered if those painkillers Lorne had given him were going to kick in any time soon. “What project?”

Gunn cuffed him very gently around the back of the head. “Operation Get Wes Some Self-Esteem And I Mean Yesterday.”

Fred paused in her stomping to come over and put her hands on Wesley’s shoulders, gazing into his eyes in a way that made his heart do that familiar flip-flop. “Thank you for what you did, Wesley. It was incredibly brave.”

“And incredibly _stupid_.” Cordelia also cuffed him around the back of the head, a lot less gently than Gunn. “Don’t ever do that again – the stupid spell, the stupid heroics – any of it.”

Wincing and holding the back of his head, Wesley murmured, “Yes, Cordelia.”

“You didn’t think we were brave and heroic?” Gunn enquired. “Not to mention kind of manly and impressive?”

Cordelia shrugged. “As decoys go you were relatively…big and shiny. But I think when Groo was guarding the basement single-handed so they couldn’t take Wesley away with them he was probably wielding his weapon in a slightly more heroic way.”

“You know, some of us are awfully sick of hearing about Groo’s weapon-wielding abilities,” Angel told her.

She just smiled at him. “And some of us are just going to have to get over it.”

“Princess…” Groo smiled at her tenderly. “Lorne and I agree that your vanquishing of the evil counterparts of Angel and Gunn should, in the tradition of your world, be commemorated in song.”

Cordelia stretched out a shapely ankle. “Well, that sounds like a very good idea to me. Just be sure to mention the new shoes I was wearing at the time. What rhymes with Balenciaga?”

Lorne looked at her shoes and raised an eyebrow. “You bought a pair of Balenciaga leather and crocodile trim zip up sandals on what we earn?”

“Well, they’re new to me.” Cordelia rolled her eyes. “Okay, I took them in payment for a case but it wasn’t as if the wife was going to miss them. She had like…five hundred pairs of shoes.”

“How come she gets a song?” Gunn demanded of Angel. “Weren’t we there being all manly and heroic? And wasn’t Wes the one risking his ass?” 

Shifting uncomfortably, Wesley thought there had been quite enough discussion of his ass for one day and really hoped they could not mention it for at least five years.

Cordelia glanced across at Lorne. “What do you say? Do you think they should get a mention in the chorus? I don’t know you need to use their names or anything, but you could maybe say there were a few other people there apart from me, Fred and Groo.”

That was when the floor rippled again. There was an uneasy silence as Wesley and Lorne exchanged a glance. Lorne said, “That was what happened just before…”

Angel stood bolt upright and said, “Hush.”

There was a long breathless silence and then Cordelia said, “What?”

But Angel was already sprinting for the smashed cabinet and the weapons still littering the floor.

“Oh no…” Lorne shook his head. “No. No. And how about a resounding ‘No’?”

“But they’re dead.” Fred looked down at the dust beneath her heels as if she needed the reassurance it was still there. “We killed them.”

Groo held his sword at the ready, gently pushing Cordelia behind him, and Gunn had also snatched up a crossbow, moving in front of Fred. Angel stood in front of both of them, throwing axe in one hand and a sword in the other.

Even Wesley could hear it now, the faint sound of footsteps on the stairs up from the basement. His heart began to hammer a little faster and he saw Angel turn and give him a quick glance of mingled compassion and reassurance before turning back to face this new threat.

The door opened slowly to reveal…Faith and Giles.

Angel lowered his sword. “Faith? I thought you were still in prison…”

Wesley wondered if it was possible to pass out from sheer relief. “Giles, I thought you were coming tomorrow?”

Giles and Faith exchanged a glance and then spread out, advancing cautiously, both with weapons in their hands, Wesley noticed now. Crossbows. 

“Oh!” said Fred abruptly, and she darted in front of Gunn. “It’s not them! I mean – this Angel and Gunn – they’re not the ones you’re looking for.”

Groo and Cordelia both grabbed Angel and yanked him behind them, Cordelia holding up her hands to say, “Your guys are dead and dusted.”

Fred pointed to the pile of dust. “See. Right there. Literal dust.”

Giles and Faith exchanged another glance and then much to Wesley’s relief, Giles lowered his crossbow. “Then, this Angel and Gunn are…?”

Faith marched up to Gunn and splashed something in his face. He flinched, wiping his face. “What the…?”

She showed him the bottle of Holy water. “Just checking.”

Angel backed up another pace. “I’m still a vampire. I just have a soul.”

“Yeah, bet you say that to all the Slayers.” She glanced at him appraisingly but didn’t splash him with Holy water. 

“Generally only the ones he puts out for,” Cordelia assured her.

Faith shrugged. “Yeah, well, that’s why I’m here instead of B. Didn’t want her to have to stake the son-of-a-bitch – and there was the little matter of me wanting to do it myself just for the fun of it.”

Giles looked across at Wesley, his gaze compassionate and searching. “As you appear to have gathered, we’re from a different…reality, I presume. I don’t really understand how that works but I have to accept that it does as we’re here, and you were…where you were. We came here to dispose of…” He examined the dust. “But you already seem to have done it for us.”

“Which I’m still pissed about, by the way.” Faith looked down at the dust, face unreadable, then cleared her throat and spat with great accuracy into the centre of it; eyes murderous. “No one does that to my Watcher.”

“They were kind of holding Wesley hostage,” Fred explained apologetically. “And we really didn’t like them much either.”

“No, I imagine that you didn’t.” Giles was still looking at Wesley who felt exposed by the concern in the man’s eyes. “Are you all right?” Giles asked him gently.

Wesley nodded. “I had – good aftercare.”

“What about the other Wesley?” Angel pressed. “The one from your dimension. Is he…?”

Faith glared at him. “Insane? Yes, he was, pretty much. Luckily, after the last bout of fever he stopped remembering…anything – who we were, who they were – Fred and Cordy, Angel and Gunn. Willow did a cleansing spell, got rid of the last few cobwebs, which stopped most of the nightmares. Still wakes up screaming sometimes, of course, but he doesn’t know why. Can’t stand the sound of crying babies. They scare him. Apart from that he’s pretty much normal for someone who is twenty-nine and has no idea of anything that happened to him up until a month ago. Now he’s learning everything again, making good progress too – he can spell his own name, tie his own shoelaces. He can even read – as long as the print’s nice and big and there are pictures.”

Wesley was taken aback by the raw grief on her face. He had never expected to see any Faith looking like that because of some harm done to him. If the kernel of viciousness he had witnessed in Angelus was buried somewhere in Angel then presumably this ability to care for others must be somewhere in Faith too.

“I’m sorry,” he said gently.

She snatched a calming breath. “You don’t look too good either.”

“I was lucky. They didn’t kill anyone in front of me.”

“Wesley is re-learning things,” Giles sounded tired but determined. “He lives with me now – as does Faith. We share his care between us. He can manage simple lessons. He’s not unhappy. And he shows signs of having the same interests.” He removed his glasses so as not to meet any of their eyes. “I’m confident that he can learn to read to an adult level again, and perhaps even to translate, given time. It’s just a matter of not rushing him. There was no actual…brain damage. His mind just needed a…rest. Willow and Xander are taking care of him today. He feels quite safe with them – although we’d better be heading back as soon as possible.”

“I’m sorry,” Angel said. “Truly. We know we were lucky to get Wes back in even the bad shape he was in. At least he was still…Wesley.”

Giles looked across at Wesley again. “I am terribly sorry for what was done to you. I should have realized when Angelus phoned but I thought he was just calling to…gloat. It wasn’t until the tape arrived that we… Well, you can imagine how we felt when we realized that you’d been there with them for all that time.” He looked very tired, shadows under his eyes and grey at his temples that Wesley suspected had not been there a few months before. “We did try to kill them on our first visit, but once we’d lost the advantage of surprise we got into a siege situation where they could hold us off almost indefinitely. Getting Wesley away from them seemed more important, so we beat a strategic retreat and left them to the Hyperion. And once we had Wesley back in Sunnydale he was so…ill that it was several weeks before I felt able to leave him even for… We tried to warn everyone in our reality that Angelus was back and Gunn was now a vampire. I didn’t expect someone to…”

“Punch their way in from another dimension like a big suicidal dork?” Cordelia enquired. “Hey, guess what? Who the hell would?” She reached out to smack Wesley around the back of the head again, then taking in Faith’s brooding expression, settled for an admonitory tap on the shoulder.

Giles said wearily, “I imagine it’s already been pointed out to you how incredibly stupid an idea that was?”

“Several times actually,” Wesley assured him.

Faith gazed into his face then looked at the scar at his neck. “Saw the tape. You already had that wound. How did that happen?”

Wesley swallowed. “Long story.”

Faith gave him a moment to tell it and then as he clearly wasn’t going to, nodded; respecting his privacy. She looked around at the others then looked back at him, ducking her head to keep eye contact. “They treat you okay here? Cause I’m a Watcher short. And I was thinking maybe it would be good for Wesley to…”

“Wouldn’t it just confuse him?” Angel said quickly. 

“Freaked me out seeing another version of me here and I don’t have the whole brain trauma thing,” Gunn added.

“If Wesley was your Watcher why was he off with Angel and the rest of us?” Cordelia enquired.

“Cutbacks,” Faith shrugged. “The Council always were cheap bastards. They sent Wes to replace Giles but Wes sent them a report saying that they’d made a mistake and no one could do a better job of being Buffy’s Watcher than Giles. He was very earnest. Cited a lot of precedents – gave lots of examples of how good a Watcher Giles was and how an hour of practical experience in the field was worth a hundred hours of theory. So, they send in an assessment team to look at the whole Sunnydale situation. I’m not even thinking I’m going to be affected. We’re just all crossing our fingers for B and Giles that they can go back to being the way they were. Meanwhile, I’ve got my own Watcher.” Noticing Giles, she sighed. “Nothing against Giles – he knows I love him – but Wes was doing a good job. Taking a lot of crap from me, too, and not whining about it. Well, not much.” For a moment she almost smiled and then the reality of the situation came back to her and she sighed. “He was the rookie. Still had a lot to learn but I was training him up just fine and then the Council sends back a report saying, okay, Giles is reinstated but by the way Wes is fired because you don’t need ‘two Watchers for two Slayers in the same geographical location’. I think it was spite, you know? Because he questioned them. B and Angel are having the big angsty break up and there’s a lot going down, and before we can find Wes another berth he’s headed off on his rogue demon hunter thing. It was just lucky Angel took him in before he starved to death in some…” Again a smile threatened and then was banished. “Funny – I still can’t get out of the habit of thinking it was a good thing he ended up with Angel.”

Fred said compassionately, “But he still has you, doesn’t he? And Giles? And the people in Sunnydale?”

“Yeah, he has us.” Faith gritted her teeth. “And nothing bad any side of hell is getting within spitting distance of him this time.”

“I imagine he can sense that,” Wesley said quietly. “That you care about him. It would mean a lot to him to have people caring for him – showing him affection. He probably wasn’t used to…” Aware of the others all around him, he cleared his throat. “I imagine it’s probably enough for him now.”

“I have high hopes of his eventual recovery,” Giles said. “And in the meantime he is receiving the best possible care that we can provide between us.”

“I suppose the Council don’t pay the medical bills for fired Watchers, do they?” Cordelia enquired.

Giles looked up at her. “No. The Council consider Wesley none of their business any more. Which is why I’m not informing them of his current condition.”

“You know about his father?” Wesley asked. “That he – wouldn’t be good for him.”

Faith said, “Yeah, I know all about the emotionally abusive son-of-a-bitch on account of our Wes getting drunk under the table by me, one time, and us doing the sharing thing.”

Wesley tried to imagine ever having done that with the Faith in his dimension, feeling a pang for what might have been. “You must have been good for him.”

“Damned straight I was good for him. That was what got me so pissed with the Council. I was halfway through my uptight English Guy rehabilitation program and they closed the damned class.”

“And we Watchers are brought up to think that we’re the ones doing the training.”

Faith shrugged. “Yeah, never got that. B didn’t either. It so doesn’t work that way.” She glanced at him. “So, what do you say to the being my Watcher thing?”

Wesley took a deep breath. “Thank you for the offer, Faith. But I really do want to stay in my own dimension from now on. And although I think the chances of my ever being the Watcher for the Faith in this dimension again are slim to non-existent, I…”

“Can’t be spared,” Angel said emphatically. “Needed here.”

“Yes, sorry.” Cordelia folded her arms. “We have a hotline to the Powers here and we need our demon researcher guy.”

“Definitely needed here,” Gunn said. “Because, you know – research is really boring and how many guys are you going to find who actually like it? And ones that can do that and know how to cross-section a Slarkal demon with a katana – don’t exactly grow on trees. And, besides, sometimes you just really need a stuffy English guy around the place. Just because.”

“And we like him.” Fred put her arms around Wesley from behind him and beamed down at him. “So we want to keep him.”

Faith gazed at Wesley. “You really want to stay with the freak show here?”

“Yes.”

“Even after what went down in my dimension?”

“It won’t happen here.” Wesley gazed at her intently. “And this is where I want to be. These are the people…” he broke off in embarrassment.

Cordelia glared at him. “Say it.”

“I’m English,” he protested.

“Say it anyway. We all did.”

Sighing he admitted, “These are the people I want to be with.”

Faith glanced around at them. “Well, no accounting for tastes, but it’s cool.”

As another fizz and crackle rippled through the hotel and Lorne put a hand to his head again, Faith and Giles exchanged a glance. “Better catch that dimensional sewer tunnel, home, Boss,” Faith observed. She nodded to Wesley. “Take care of yourself, Wes. And if that vampire so much as looks at you funny, soul or no soul, you stake his ass.”

Giles nodded to Wesley. “I’ll save the lecture as I presume my counterpart in this dimension has either already delivered it or is en route to, but I do wish you a speedy recovery and good luck to you and your friends in – helping the helpless.”

“We’re all very sorry about your Wesley,” Fred told Giles gently. “We hope he gets better soon. I wish we could… Actually, can you wait just a…?” She kicked off the stilettos and ran barefoot up the stairs. 

Cordelia looked after her in some perplexity. “She hasn’t been writing on the walls again, has she?”

Gunn also gazed after Fred. “No, she’s…sane.”

“It’s so hard to tell with the people around here somedays.”

They waited in slightly awkward silence while there was the sound of Fred scampering about upstairs, and then she was running back downstairs. Wesley saw in some surprise that she was carrying a copy of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s _A Little Princess_ and a rather tatty-looking soft toy that appeared to have once been a rabbit. She jumped down the last three stairs and shoved the book and toy at Giles.

“These always made me feel better when I was feeling ill. The book’s even better if someone reads it to you, and Feigenbaum is just…well, he’s the master of chaos so he makes everything else calmer, because all the crazy things they go to him and he controls them.”

Giles opened the book. “It has your name in it.”

“Yes, but he doesn’t remember the Fred in… You can tell him I was a girl he went to school with.” She beamed suddenly. “You can tell him I had a crush on him, if you like. Because I think if I had been at school with Wesley I would definitely have had a crush on him on account of him being so smart.”

Giles smiled at her very gently. “If you’d been at school with Wesley in our dimension, you would have been a boy.”

“Maybe I would have been a girl just pretending to be a boy to go to that school because they had the best teachers in the world or something. Or it could have been all part of the crush. I could have been the world’s first eight-year-old stalker; and we could have had secret meetings in the boiler room because he was the only one who could know my true identity. I think it would have been very romantic.” 

Giles looked at her for a long moment and then said, “I imagine you get on very well with the Willow in your dimension?”

“I was thinking of emailing her,” Fred admitted. 

“You should do that,” Giles told her. “I’m sure you’ll find you have a lot in common.” He nodded to her and held up the book and toy. “Feigenbaum, yes? As in Mitchell Feigenbaum, presumably? I’ll see that Wesley gets these. And – thank you.” He said it quietly but with great feeling as he gazed into Fred’s eyes and squeezed her hand gently. “I think he’ll like them very much.” As Fred looked so touched that Giles wasn’t making fun of her gift, for the first – and hopefully only – time in his life, Wesley felt a strong urge to hug Giles. He resisted it, however.

Angel caught up with Giles and Faith just before they headed down into the basement. “I won’t let what happened in your world happen here, I promise. And – I’m sure your Wesley’s going to make it. They’re – tougher than they look.”

“Have to be the way life keeps kicking them in the teeth,” Faith muttered, but she nodded to him. “Just take care of the one you’ve got. And don’t think me being in a different dimension is going to stop me hearing about it if you don’t.”

Angel nodded. “I’ll bear it in mind.”

And then they were gone, and a moment later the hotel rippled again, the light fizzed and Lorne sighed and looked around for a sea breeze. “Inter-dimensional portals,” he sighed. “Not friendly to the empathic amongst us.”

Fred wrapped her arms around Wesley again, hugging him as if they were both listening to far off music. “But look what we’ve got – our very own Wesley who isn’t insane or in a different dimension being horribly tortured. I think we should celebrate, don’t you?”

“Presumably this celebration would involve tacos of some kind?” Gunn enquired.

She nodded cheerfully. “Well, now you mention it… There are some occasions that really need tacos.”

“Okay, sweetlips.” Lorne refilled Wesley’s teacup for him and sat down next to him with a bottle of aspirin and what looked like a triple strength drink. “Why don’t you and the Gunnster go and rustle up enough food to feed a small army of scarily thin women from Texas while Wesley and I sit here and let our painkillers work their magic, and think about how dead we’re not?”

Wesley exhaled and looked at the dust on the floor; realizing that it really was over and that other reality could now get on with being just a nightmare which some other people had temporarily shared with him. “That sounds like an excellent idea to me.”

They all jumped as there was the sudden roar of an engine at close quarters and turned to see Cordelia triumphantly holding up the nozzle of the Hoover. “Well, I feel the urge to vacuum coming on. This place is just so darned…dusty.”

With the painkillers kicking in and his eyes almost closing, Wesley slumped against an equally groggy Lorne, distantly aware of a scramble for coats and car keys and demands being made on Angel’s wallet, and then he was watching the nozzle of the vacuum cleaner magically whisking away the last grey remnants of Angelus and the vampire Gunn as Cordelia hummed cheerfully all the while.

***

 

“What are you doing?”

Wesley spun around and found Cordelia standing in his bedroom doorway. “Cordelia, I could have been naked.”

“Seen you naked, no biggie,” she shrugged, coming forward. 

“Please be sure to say that in front of any women I might want to impress, won’t you?”

“Just because you can stand upright more or less unaided doesn’t mean you can start getting snippy. Why are you wearing that?”

Wesley looked down at himself in confusion. “It’s my best suit.”

“You are not wearing a suit and tie just because Giles is coming. You’ll just sit there fiddling with your tie and adjusting your cuffs and looking like a schoolboy who has to see the principal.” She thrust a pair of jeans, a t-shirt and a shirt at him. “The underwear you can choose yourself. But this is what’s going on top. Giles is not the boss of you and just because he’s British and can use sarcasm as a lethal weapon that doesn’t mean you have to go all Watcher-retard on us.”

“I like this suit.” He did, too, very much. 

“Tough.” Cordelia unknotted his tie. “It comes off now. No party manners for Giles.”

“But, Cordelia…”

“The suit is coming off, contusion boy, either with me in the room tugging at it or you being allowed five minutes of privacy to wriggle out of it into these clothes before I tell Fred you were asking for her and she should step right on in without bothering to knock.”

Wesley felt a little awestruck by the depths of her evil sometimes. “It’s the demon in you, isn’t it?”

She pulled off his tie and tossed it onto the bed. “No, sweetie, the demon part is the _good_ half of me. Now, do I have to go all glowy on your ass or are you going to do as the nice lady who _saved your life_ tells you?”

“I could scream,” he pointed out. “Tell Gunn you’re undressing me against my will.”

“Do it,” she invited. “He can help me get you out of the dorkarama clothes into something that makes you look just a tiny bit cool.”

“What’s wrong with this suit?” He looked at the cuffs, which were impeccably stitched. “It’s a good suit. And this is a good shirt.”

“It looks like a school uniform, dorkus.” 

“What’s a dorkus?”

“It’s what happens when a dork and a doofus breed. You know I could just cut you out of that suit. I’m sure I left some scissors around here somewhere…”

“No!” He held up a hand. “I’ll do what you say but only under protest.”

She shoved the jeans, t-shirt and shirt into his arms. “Protest all you like, just make sure you’re wearing these clothes when you come downstairs.”

Then she was gone and Wesley was left sighing and having to laboriously unbutton his shirt and painfully get himself back out of the clothes he had just pulled all those muscles and bruises getting into. All those years of complaining at him that he didn’t own a proper suit and needed to stop wearing cargo pants and corduroy and now she wasn’t letting him wear the one really good suit he owned. Sometimes, he had to admit, he thought Cordelia was the most unreasonable woman on the planet.

 

Cordelia had cleaned very thoroughly the evening before; after vacuuming up every speck of the vampire Gunn and the Angelus from the other dimension, she had moved onto vacuuming and dusting the rest of the lobby. Angel, Groo and Gunn had been press-ganged into helping her – Groo willingly, Angel and Gunn a great deal less willingly. Lorne, Fred, and Wesley had all been sent to bed as soon as the tacos had been eaten to sleep off their headaches and bruises. No one quite liked to stand up to Cordelia when she was in this mood. Groo had said fondly that he believed her ability to give orders and expect them to be obeyed without question proved that she was indeed a natural born monarch. Gunn and Angel had muttered things under their breath which they had not been unwise enough to repeat when Cordelia had asked them to.

With her willing and not-so-willing helpers’ assistance Cordelia had turned the lobby into a place of shining cleanliness; she had even dusted the books in the office and found a glazier who would come in at short notice and repair the doors of the weapons cabinet. 

Angel couldn’t get very excited about Giles and Willow paying a visit. Not that he wasn’t fond of Willow, but he was sure they had ever intention of trying to persuade Wesley to leave with them and he knew now that he really didn’t want that to happen. It wasn’t that his pain at losing Connor was any less. He still missed him all the time, still thought he heard him sometimes, automatically making for the stairs until he realized that it couldn’t have been a baby he heard because his baby was lost to a hell dimension. He just didn’t find himself wanting to blame Wesley for it any more. The loss of Connor had subtly evolved in his mind from something that Wesley had traitorously done to him to something that fate and false prophecies and the machinations of lying demons and wronged men had done to both of them. He had already lost his son and nearly lost his friend as well. Enough time had passed and events that had brought it home to him how little he liked the prospect of losing Wesley for good, that he knew he wanted the man to be their researcher again; needed to move onto a place where they could start rebuilding the friendship they had so nearly lost forever. But he couldn’t do that if Giles turned up and dragged Wesley back to England with him.

Perhaps because of Cordelia’s maniacal cleaning, Fred was acting as if Giles and Willow were from Social Services, with the power to take Wesley away from them if they couldn’t prove they were keeping him in a safe and sanitary environment. She had bought bunches of flowers and arranged them around the lobby, while also burning scented candles – that made Angel’s enhanced senses twitch uncomfortably – presumably to overpower the scent of tacos from the night before. 

Angel had put up with it until she had started trying to arrange drapes tastefully across the weapons cabinet, whereupon he had gently but firmly removed the material from her hand.

“Giles and Willow know what we do for a living, Fred. Giles is a Watcher. Willow is a witch. The whole demon slaying thing is not going to come as a shock to them.”

She grimaced. “I was just thinking maybe we should…accentuate the non-demony-killing parts of Wesley’s life. Point out what a nice hotel this is. Show them the real marble and the nice carvings. It’s a pity you blew up the elevator because that was all art deco and very impressive.”

Angel looked at her in bewilderment. “Why?”

“I just don’t want them thinking that we don’t know how to take care of Wesley properly.” As Angel rolled his eyes, she explained: “I was thinking of the arguments they might have – about how when Wesley was in Sunnydale he didn’t get hurt at all but since he’s been working with – well, you – he’s been tortured and blown up and shot and had his throat slashed and nearly got lost in another dimension and all.”

“He’s fighting the forces of evil. And anyway he did end up in hospital in Sunnydale.”

“He did?” Fred lit up in relief and then made another face. “Sorry, that came out wrong. I was just thinking we could use that as a counter-argument.”

“Along with the one about us having the better interior design?” Angel loved Fred, he really did, but there were times when he couldn’t help wishing her brain moved in a way that was at least approaching linear.

“I was working on some others as well,” she countered. “You just got me all flustered. How about we tell them the area outside Caritas is an area of mystical convergence so we need a researcher more than they do?”

“Fred, Giles used to live in Sunnydale – he can see your area of mystical convergence and raise you a Hellmouth.”

“So – why don’t we say that we only have an area of mystical convergence that isn’t all that dangerous as long as you don’t open any portals by reading aloud out of interesting-looking books you might find, so Wesley’s much safer here than he would be if they took him back to Sunnydale and their nasty old Hellmouth?” 

“Wesley’s not a child. They can’t get a court order to repossess him like…lost luggage…” Angel realized he was coming perilously close to floundering in a morass of mixed metaphors and mentally blamed Fred for that too. He wondered in passing if reality would start bending in an effort to get away from itself if she and Willow were left alone for too long. “He’ll go or he’ll stay. It’s up to him – not Giles.”

“Okay.” Fred edged away. “I’ll just…tidy some more. Not because of… Just because it’s polite when you have callers to make everything as nice as you can.”

As Fred slipped back into the office and started placing yet more vases in front of the odd stains on the walls and trying to train a new pot of ivy around a dent in the bookcase, Gunn appeared at Angel’s side, shaking his head. “You gotta tell me – how many centuries does it take before women start to make sense?”

“I’ll let you know when I do.”

“So, this Giles…? Scary guy?”

Angel shrugged. “Just – British. You know. All quiet and tweedy and sipping his tea but inside they still think they ought to be running the world.”

Gunn looked at him sideways. “You gotta history?”

“You could say that.” Angel looked up. “Wait – you don’t mean...? You’re not asking if we dated, are you?”

“You _dated_?”

“No! I was just – checking you weren’t asking that.”

“I was _so_ not asking that. And can we just establish right now if there's anyone out there you dated that I wouldn’t want to know about, I don’t ever need to hear about it, okay? And that goes double for Wesley.”

“Are you asking me if I dated Wesley? Or just saying you don’t want to know who Wesley dated either?”

Gunn rubbed his brow. “Okay, let’s start this conversation again. So, you and this Giles guy – do you and him have some kind of history of maybe arguing or not getting along too well from your time in Sunnydale – details of which I really don’t need to know about? Clear enough?”

“I lost my soul in Sunnydale over the whole…”

“Nothing about you achieving perfect happiness is something I need to know about.”

“I was just going to point out that it was with Buffy and not – anyone else. I wasn’t going to give you details.”

“Still thinking about you doing things I don’t want to think about you doing right now. So – can we move on from the perfect happiness thing?”

“I lost my soul. When I was…Angelus, I killed Giles’s girlfriend and tortured him for information. Then I tried to destroy the world.”

“That Angelus – quite the party guy, isn’t he?” Gunn sighed. “So – you and this Giles guy are you cool about what you – about what Angelus did?”

“We…live around it. There are some things you can’t apologize for. Can’t undo.”

“How true.”

They looked around to see Wesley carefully negotiating the stairs, holding on tightly to the banister, but certainly looking stronger than even the day before. Gunn darted up the stairs to give him a hand, putting an arm around his waist to assist him.

Angel and Wesley exchanged a long look, regret in Wesley’s blue eyes at what had happened undisguised. Angel couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t be too much of a simplification of his feelings, but he could and did take Wesley’s arm to help him over to the banquette.

“Oh! Wesley!” 

Wesley jumped guiltily at Fred’s exclamation. “Yes?”

“I need to get you some tea.” She sped away to where the kettle was while Wesley looked after her in confusion then turned to Gunn for an explanation.

The man waved a hand. “Don’t ask. We have no clue.”

Angel noticed Wesley’s clothes. “Weren’t you going to wear your suit?”

“Cordelia wouldn’t let me.”

“That woman has delusions of grandeur.” Gunn shook his head. “Couple of days as princess of Pylea and she thinks she rules the… Hi, Cordy. My, you’re looking…”

“Like someone who just heard everything you said?”

Gunn said hastily, “I should help Fred with the tea.” 

As he sped off, Wesley looked to Angel for an explanation and the vampire shrugged. “Something in the tacos? Contagious insanity? Willow did a spell on them from long distance?”

“Doesn’t he look nice?” Cordelia tugged at Wesley’s shirt to make it fall at a slightly different angle while looking expectantly at Angel. She scrunched Wesley’s hair with her fingers while he flinched in anticipation. “Stop flinching. I’m not hurting you. Angel? Don’t you think Wesley looks nice not wearing his dork suit and wearing the clothes I specially picked out for him?”

“Gunn and I are having a moratorium on noticing how Wesley looks for the next decade or so.”

“Trying to sidestep the pervert factor,” Gunn explained coming out with a cup of tea which he handed to Wesley.

Cordelia was still scrunching Wesley’s hair with her fingers. “Sheesh, you let the least little thing affect you, don’t you? Where’s your hair gel, Angel?”

“I don’t want my hair to look like Angel’s,” Wesley said desperately.

“And I don’t want to share my hair gel with Wesley,” Angel added.

“I’m not going to make it look like you stuck your finger in a light socket, I just want to…” She marched off in search of product and they all heaved a sigh of relief.

Fred hurried out of the office with a cardboard box in her hands. Wesley opened his mouth to offer to carry it for her until he evidently realized that he couldn’t and closed it again sadly. Angel stepped forward to intercept her. Looking inside he saw several magical artefacts, some of the rarer volumes and a few ancient pamphlets on demonic rituals. 

“I really don’t think Giles and Willow are going to steal from us, Fred,” he said patiently.

“No, it’s just…” Fred opened one of the books, revealing an engraving depicting people having an orgiastic ritual to the greater glory of Lucifer. “These are the…dirtiest. I don’t want them thinking…”

Angel gazed at the very phallic looking Nirvalan weather lance and raised an eyebrow. “I get your point.”

She lowered her voice: “All of us living here, like this, not married and all… They might… you know…”

Before Angel could come up with a reasonable argument for why Fred should not be hiding all the most pornographic things they possessed under her bed, she had scurried upstairs.

Gunn and Wesley both looked at him for an explanation. Angel shrugged helplessly. “She’s trying to give the hotel a PG rating. In case Giles assumes we’re having evil orgiastic demon-raising Tupperware parties or something...”

“I didn’t know you could use Tupperware for that,” Wesley admitted, sipping his tea –before sloshing into his saucer after uttering a barely stifled yelp when Cordelia stuck her gel-covered fingers into his hair without warning. “Cordelia, you can’t just…”

Angel watched in fascination as Cordelia got Wesley’s new trendy hair style to do presumably newer and even trendier things with the aid of the hair gel, including making various bits of it stick up at the back and criss cross on the top. “Wax would be better but I’m used to working miracles with anything that comes to hand.” She beamed at them triumphantly. “How does he look now?”

Gunn put his head on one side. “With the hair and the designer stubble and the clothes? Like a male model who got mugged on his way to the photo shoot.”

Angel sighed. “Cordelia, what Gunn is trying to point out is that no one is going to be looking at Wesley’s hair when he very obviously got thrown head first into a weapon’s cabinet yesterday.”

Cordelia’s eyes lit up. “Of course! Make up!” She headed off purposefully.

Wesley turned to Angel and Gunn with something approaching desperation in his eyes. “Please. Make her stop.”

“I don’t think we can,” Gunn admitted. “Want to make a run for it?”

“You’re not going anywhere!” Cordelia shouted over her shoulder.

“Is that a demon thing?” Angel asked curiously.

Gunn shook his head. “She could always do that.”

Angel did however put his foot down when Cordelia came back with her make-up compact in her hand. Catching her wrist and saying quietly but firmly, “No.”

“You want him to look he like got thrown head first into a weapons’ cabinet?” 

“Not particularly but as he did I can’t see the point in trying to cover it up. They know the work we do here is dangerous.”

“I could say I walked into a door,” Wesley offered. As they all looked at him in disbelief, he blinked. “Well, that does give you a black eye sometimes. I was always walking into doors at school until they realized I was near sighted.”

“Oh yes, _do_ tell them that.” Cordelia rolled her eyes. “That’ll just put their minds at rest in an instant.”

“Put their minds at rest about what?” he asked in confusion.

They all exchanged looks. Angel sighed. “About the beating and starving and locking in closets of you that we all do.”

“What?”

“That they think we do. Think _I_ do anyway.”

Wesley’s confusion showed no signs of abating. “Why did you tell Giles you beat me and starved me and locked me in cupboards?”

“I didn’t. He just…assumed.”

“Why would he assume that?”

“Because I’m the big bad vampire who tried to smother you in the hospital.”

There was an awkward silence in which Cordelia and Gunn both grimaced at one another and Angel and Wesley exchanged another of those long looks that always made Angel feel as if they’d had a three-hour conversation.

Quietly, Wesley said, “I see. And has Giles somehow forgotten that you’re also the big bad vampire who after I stole your son still took me in when I turned up bleeding on your doorstep?”

They exchanged another look. Angel realized how much he would have missed those. Wesley was the only person he’d ever been able to communicate with through something that approximated to telepathy, but they definitely needed eye contact to make it work. Transatlantic phone calls would not have been the same. “What are you going to tell Giles?”

“We already…” Wesley broke off as the doors opened to admit Giles, looking unexpectedly non-tweedy – in fact wearing jeans, a soft mauve sweater and a very nice suede jacket, and Willow looking tired but very pretty in something red and pink and vaguely tasselled that should have clashed with her hair but didn’t.

“See…” Cordelia nudged Wesley in the back. “You didn’t need to wear a suit.”

Willow beamed at Angel, which wrong-footed him more than any glare of disapproval would have done. She came forward and gave him a hug which confused him even more. He’d almost forgotten in his anxiety over this meeting that he and Willow had none of the issues that he and Giles did. She stood back to look him over. “You’re looking very…dark avengery.”

He couldn’t help smiling at her. “And you’re looking very…Willowy.” 

She came over to the others, smiling at them all cheerfully, “Hi, Cordy, you’re looking really…great, and Wesley you’re looking really…” She grimaced. “Um…kind of like someone threw you through a window.”

“It was the weapons cabinet,” Fred said, hastily amending. “Not really through it – because it’s up against the wall but sort of into it. But – that hardly ever happens here. It was definitely a one-off.” Seeing Willow’s gently encouraging expression she shot out a hand. “I’m Fred. Short for Winifred. Burkle. I live here, along with Angel – but not _with_ Angel like that because that would just be… Although I did have a crush for a while but I’m so over that now, it was really just a reaction to not living in a cave any more. I live with Charles now. That’s Charles.”

Gunn gave himself a little shake. A common experience Angel had noticed when Fred was allowed to get into full spate. He held out a hand. “Charles Gunn.”

Angel could hear the introductions continuing behind him as Giles came over to him. “Angel.”

“Giles.”

There was a pause before Giles said, “Buffy and Dawn send their regards.”

Angel raised an eyebrow. “What, no hug from Xander?” He became aware of Wesley shifting uncomfortably and knew Wesley was watching his interaction with Giles anxiously. Sighing, Angel decided to play nice to save Wesley’s shattered nerves. He glanced over at him and gave him a reassuring look but Wesley still looked as if only years of being whacked over the knuckles with a ruler by implacable teachers was stopping him from biting his nails right now. Although come to think of it they probably didn’t do that any more. It was almost more scary to think Wesley had grown up the way he had in an era of no corporal punishment than one with the knuckle-rappings and canings of the past.

Wesley tugged at Fred’s sleeve and murmured something to her and she sprang up like someone had run a thousand volts through her, making everyone around her jolt anxiously too. “Tea! I’ll make tea.” She looked at Giles. “You’d like tea, yes?”

Giles looked at her in some perplexity. “Yes, thank you, a cup of tea would be very…” But she had darted into the office.

“She spent five years in a cave,” Gunn explained.

“In my home dimension.” Lorne took a strengthening sip of his sea breeze just at the thought of it. “Pylea isn’t exactly friendly to the humankind.”

“Groo’s from Pylea.” Cordelia pulled him forward proudly, Groo having tried to modestly hang back. “I was made Princess.”

“A life’s ambition realized…” Giles murmured.

Cordelia looked at him narrowly. “So, Giles – are those mid-life crisis clothes or are you just trying really hard to get laid?”

Willow said hastily, “So – has there been any activity that suggests the gateway to the other dimension is still open…?”

Angel decided to leave that explanation to everyone else, moving a little apart to try to calm his jangled nerves. One day he probably would be able to hear the name ‘Buffy’ without it resonating through him like an electric shock. It seemed a little unfair that he was currently suffering from jealousy over Cordelia’s preference for Groo _and_ still feeling like someone had stuck a kopek in his guts and twisted it every time Buffy was mentioned. 

Willow was listening wide-eyed to the saga of the visiting Angelus and demon Gunn, while Giles was frowning and taking notes.

“You have a videotape of it? Them coming here? Does it show the portal activity?”

Wesley turned to Gunn with a begging look that no one could possibly have misinterpreted, and Gunn said quickly, “No. Sorry – it – static – interference. Couldn’t really see or hear anything.” Adding sotto voce: ‘Wes, stop with the eyes…’

“The point is they’re dead.” Cordelia took one of the cups from the tray Fred brought out while Giles thanked her gravely for his. “So, the portal going swirly or whooshy or just crackle-a-lot doesn’t really matter any more because they won’t be coming through it. And you’ve got the spell, right? The one that Brain of Britain here decided to use to get himself there. So, can you close it or not?”

“Yes,” Willow said decisively. “I’m sure we can. It’s just a pity about the videotape because it would have been easier if we could have seen if it was kind of whooshy or crackly. Maybe I could run it through my computer and see if I can clean up the images.”

Wesley once again whammied Gunn with the full-on angst eyes and the taller man said hastily, “Tossed it. Sorry. We weren’t sure if it was – carrying different dimension germs or something so we threw it in the incinerator.”

“We did?” Fred looked at him in surprise. Gunn nudged her and jerked his head at Wesley’s angsty face and she hastily amended: “Oh yes, we did. Burned it right up.”

Giles looked around the hotel. “And you people run a detective agency, yes?”

Fred nodded. “We help the helpless and investigate paranormal and demonic happenings.” She held out a fan of cards from the front desk.

“Lot of undercover work is there in your line of business?” Giles enquired dryly, taking the cards. He looked through them all. “Angel, Cordelia Chase, Charles Gunn, Winifred Burkle.”

Cordelia said without a flicker of shame at the falsehood, “Wesley’s are being reprinted – they usually try to put extra ‘h’s in his name but this time they just spelt Pryce with an ‘i’. He hates it when they do that. Worse than when they forget his hyphen. You should see the sulking. And Groo and Lorne aren’t actually on the payroll. Groo’s kind of a freelance champion and Lorne is really a houseguest – on account of us making him homeless by getting his nightclub destroyed.”

“Three times.” Lorne took another sip of his drink. “That’s the point where I decided I could take a hint from the Powers That Whatever You. And, you know – Krevlorneswath of the Deathwok Clan – doesn’t fit so well on a business card– although I’ve always thought it would really look really good picked out in lights.”

Giles handed back the cards to Fred while still looking at Wesley. “So – Wesley…?”

“We’ve already been through this.” Cordelia folded her arms in her best ‘none shall pass’ manner. “Wesley doesn’t want to go back to Sunnydale in this dimension or any other dimension. And I don’t get why people keep trying to take him back there anyway. It’s not like anyone even gave him the time of day when he was there except for me.”

Wesley murmured, “Giles was very patient.”

“I went to see him in the hospital,” Willow protested. “And I made him a get well soon card too. It had a little cricket bat on it and everything.”

Fred beamed at Willow. “That was so sweet.”

“I’m not in Sunnydale any more, Cordelia,” Giles said quietly. “I live in England now. I was only wondering if…”

Angel found he couldn’t stay silent any longer. “Well, Wesley doesn’t want to go there either. And like Cordelia said, why the sudden interest? None of you gave a damn about him when the Council fired him and he had nowhere to go and no money to get there. That six months he was rogue demon hunting his way into a place where he had no food, no sleep, nowhere to stay and a very good chance of getting himself killed, how many times did you try to find him? Or even spare him a thought?”

Giles glared at him. “You have no idea how many thoughts I’ve spared Wesley over the years or how many times I’ve wondered if he knows what a risk he’s taking…”

“I know. Working for the big bad vampire! Once a Council guy, always a Council guy, right, Giles? Well, I’m getting a little sick of everyone looking at me and seeing baby-eating rapist murderer vampire just because in another dimension… Did everyone start edging away from Willow after that vampire version of her turned up in Sunnydale?”

Cordelia said, “Well, let’s be honest, Angel, ordinary Willow wears fluffy pink sweaters, it was a bit of a stretch to start seeing her as evil Willow, mistress of bondage, just because she wriggled her way into a clinging costume for a few hours and pretended to be her evil twin. I mean, Wesley got into those leather pants just fine but that didn’t make him a member of the Village People, did it?”

Wesley blinked. “I thought they – didn’t they make me look sort of rugged and dangerous?”

Cordelia glanced at him. “We weren’t going to tell you but, no, Wes, they made you look like you should have been working Santa Monica Boulevard. Did you really wear those from Sunnydale to Los Angeles without getting your ass pinched?”

Angel nudged her. “Cordy…”

She grimaced. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to…”

“And I see tact is still a strong point.” Willow took a deep breath. “Can we stop with the shouting and the accusing and the general bad vibeyness?”

Lorne nodded. “Thank you for saying it, sweetpea. After yesterday’s bad vibeathon I really don’t need any more hollering and recriminating.”

Angel rolled his eyes. “I’m just sick of people turning up here who don’t even know Wesley the way we do and thinking that they know what’s best for him and that he’s going to be better off with them. Why would he be?”

“Perhaps because we don’t try to smother him with pillows?” Giles suggested.

Angel glowered at him. “You undermined his self esteem. If you’d been nicer to him in Sunnydale…”

“Can we please not do this?” Wesley looked up at them and at the sight of his various cuts and bruises everyone winced again. “I don’t want to go to England. I don’t want to go to Sunnydale. But I will go absolutely anywhere right now if it means people will stop talking about me as if I’m not here.”

Angel grimaced. “Sorry – we could go outside and talk about you if you like?”

“I’m not here to take Wesley back to England.” Giles glared at Angel. “He and I spoke about this yesterday and he’s already told me he wants to stay here – although why I really can’t imagine.”

“Oh.” Angel looked at Wesley. “I didn’t know you’d spoken to Giles.”

“It was just before Angelus and the other Gunn turned up…” Wesley grimaced. “Sorry.”

Angel turned back to Giles awkwardly. “It’s just – the other Giles was all gung-ho about taking Wesley back with them to their dimension too.”

“Didn’t they have one there?” Willow asked in concern.

“There’s was a bit…dented. They had a Willow, though, and a Xander, and Buffy, and Faith. Just none of…” he gestured awkwardly at his companions, “…us. Faith said she wanted our Wesley for her Watcher but I think she was just hoping he could help out with therapy for their Wesley – and I think it would have traumatized the other Wesley anyway. Seeing another version of yourself – not a nice experience.”

Willow nodded emphatically. “You can say that again. Especially when they’re skanky and evil.”

“I’m not particularly skanky or evil,” Wesley pointed out.

“The other Gunn and Angelus were beyond skanky and evil,” Fred told Willow. “They were the skankiest evillest vampires to ever walk the earth. I really didn’t like them.”

“It’s so good you and Cordy dusted them.”

“I dusted the other me,” Gunn protested.

“Only because we distracted him for you,” Cordelia insisted.

“Wesley saved me.” Fred looked at Wesley so fondly that Angel wondered not for the first time if she was actually dating the right guy or if some inconvenient light bulb was going to go off at her head at a later date where she suddenly realized Wesley was the one for her. It would probably help if Wesley stopped with the enigmatic broody angsty whumped guy thing and stopped gazing at her with the big blue puppy dog eyes too. As someone who had used the enigmatic broody angsty whumped vampire thing and the big brown puppy dog eyes on more than one occasion himself; he knew how effective a combination they could be. Fred was blissfully unaware of any such thoughts and beamed at Willow. “He was so brave. He stalled them while Lorne helped get me to safety. And then when we got down the fire escape Angel and the others were just coming back. So we made our cunning plan to rescue Wesley and totally dusted the evil bad guys.”

Gunn looked at Lorne. “Still think you should have let me piss on their dust.”

Fred nudged him, saying hastily, “No, we would never do that, because that would just be unsanitary.”

Angel looked at her. “Fred, you do know that Giles and Willow aren’t from the public health department or social services and even if we had rats in the basement they still couldn’t take Wesley out of here without his consent?”

Fred shifted uncomfortably. “I know. I was just… I know.”

Giles drained his tea, looked at Willow and said, “Shall we close that inter-dimensional tear then, Willow?”

“Love to.” She put her teacup back on the tray Fred was still holding, smiled at her, patted her tentatively on the shoulder, said, “Well, it was really nice talking to you all but I really think we need to…go and do witchy portally-closing things now.”

Fred looked at her hopefully. “Will you stay for lunch because we were thinking…?”

“Sorry,” Giles said hastily. “Not this time. On the next visit, perhaps. This way to the basement is it, Angel?”

“I’ll show you.” Realizing that he had been so defensive about them taking Wesley away that he had not exactly been the perfect host, Angel hurried to make amends, sprinting across to hold open the door, then putting on the light, taking Willow’s bag from her and carrying it down into the basement. “It was… Actually, I don’t know where it was. Wesley would probably. Do you want me to…?”

“It’s okay.” Willow held up her hands. “It’s pretty clear where it was. The air’s still fizzing. Why don’t you go and…”

“Let us get on with it,” Giles suggested.

Angel nodded and backed away awkwardly, relieved to sprint back up the stairs and close the door on them. He leant against it and saw everyone was looking equally relieved.

“That could have gone better…” Wesley said faintly.

“I think I liked the other Giles more,” Fred murmured to Gunn. “This one is kind of scary. Is that how Watchers get in this dimension when they get to that age?”

Everyone looked speculatively at Wesley for a moment. Cordelia said, “How many years older than you is Giles, Wesley?”

“About twelve I think.” Wesley looked up at her in confusion. “Why?”

“Just checking.”

“Maybe it’s living on a Hellmouth?” Gunn suggested.

Angel sighed. He knew he’d behaved badly to Giles. He knew Wesley knew it too. He was going to have to make sure those two got some time together before Giles and Willow headed back so Wesley could talk to Giles in peace and without fear of being overheard. Something he would have arranged this time if he hadn’t been feeling so defensive about his actions, their recent history, and the behaviour of the Angelus from the other dimension. He walked over to where the others were still sitting on the banquette and said quietly: “Maybe it’s being responsible for a group of reckless vulnerable teenagers, having your girlfriend murdered by someone you used to trust, being tortured, fired, almost killed about once a month, and then having to watch your Slayer die right in front of you.”

Angel noticed that everyone was staring fixedly behind him with deer-in-headlights expressions and sighed, closing his eyes. Yes, this was definitely not going to be a good day.

“I need to borrow a receptacle of some kind…”

He turned around to find Giles standing there looking grave and thoughtful. Angel nodded. “There are a few things in the kitchen. Come with me and see if there’s anything that would work.”

They walked to the kitchen in silence. When they reached it at the thought of the long walk back also in silence, Angel said, “Willow looks tired.”

Giles looked at him in surprise. “Yes. She’s had a difficult time recently. She was trying to avoid all magic but this was too important to ignore. Wesley is aware that what he did was extraordinarily irresponsible and dangerous, isn’t he?”

“You’ve seen what he looks like and that’s after weeks of healing. He’s never going to try that again. He knows he could have got Fred and Cordy killed. If those two vampires had followed him straight back when his suicide nut kicked in we wouldn’t have been ready for them. He knows that.”

“Are you certain?”

“He’s a smart guy. If I’m capable of working it out, he certainly is, and he would never do anything to risk Cordelia or Fred’s lives. He was prepared to get dragged back to that hellhole basement in the other dimension and go through it all again to save Fred. He knows it would have done worse than kill him. He knows he would have ended up as insane as that other Wesley. But he was still prepared to do it. Wes does the wrong thing sometimes, it’s true, but he doesn’t usually do it for the wrong reasons.”

Giles ran a hand through his hair. “It still makes me extremely nervous to think that he is dabbling in spells as dark and powerful as that one, and I’m not just being paranoid. Willow has been…on the brink of becoming an addict for some time now. I blame myself for not being here, but I felt Buffy needed a chance to reconnect with Dawn, with life, with herself.”

“Has she?” 

Giles sighed. “Not yet. So far she’s reconnected with a lot of self-loathing and repressed anger. She’s suffered too many blows in too short a time to keep bouncing back with no emotional scar tissue.”

Angel closed his eyes, thinking of that vibrant innocent girl he’d first seen. “I didn’t exactly help that situation.”

“No, you didn’t. But it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know about the fine print of your curse, you certainly aren’t responsible for the actions of Angelus – in this dimension or any other – and you had nothing to do with Joyce’s death or Buffy’s. She was ripped out of paradise by people who love her and whom she can’t therefore hate for what they did to her. She can’t finish college. She’s trying to take care of a sister with a number of problems of her own, and her taste in boyfriends actually appears to be getting worse.”

“Is she seeing someone?”

“Angel, trust me on this, you really don’t want to know.”

Angel picked up a saucepan and realized that Giles was right – he didn’t. It hurt too much and always would hurt too much to know that Buffy had someone in her life who wasn’t him. “You’re probably right. What are you doing about Willow?”

“Taking her back to England with me. That was partly why I was hoping Wesley…”

“He doesn’t need to go to Spellcasters Anonymous, Giles, I swear. Magic to Wesley is a means to an end. He doesn’t get off on the power kick. He just knows how to say the words to make the spell happen. He was trying to fix something he’d done that turned out wrong. He thought about the consequences first. He swallowed that nut even though it might kill him because he wanted to be sure there was a failsafe. Wesley isn’t reckless and the only thing he possibly needs an intervention about is his antiquarian book buying habit. But Willow sounds as if she definitely needs to go with you.”

“There’s a chance Tara will accompany her. I’ve been having lunch with Tara for the past week or so and she still cares for Willow very much. I know a coven in England that might be able to help Willow to find a way to use her powers that isn’t destructive. They have more knowledge than I do and could help her find the necessary balance within herself to deal with her undoubted magical abilities. I don’t want her to have to act like an alcoholic who can never touch another drink. Without being brutal, she is too useful a tool in the fight against evil. But I’m worried that if she falls back into her previous abuse of magic it could end up possessing her entirely. Dark magic has a will of its own sometimes.”

Angel thought of Buffy alone in Sunnydale without Giles or Willow. “What about Buffy?”

“I’m afraid Buffy is too overwhelmed by her own problems at the moment to be able to help Willow or anyone else.”

“No, I mean – how will she manage without you both?”

“I have every confidence in Buffy’s ability to realize for herself that she needs to reconnect with the people around her.”

“But if you’re not there…”

“You’re not there either.” Giles’ expression was surprisingly gentle. “And for a good reason.” He examined the saucepan dubiously. “I was hoping for something with a closer resemblance to a cauldron.”

“There may be a cooking pot.” Angel opened cupboards and began to search. Over his shoulder, he said, “I can’t imagine you ever – not being good for Buffy.”

“I can assure you that I was not being good for her at all. When you have people on the cusp of childhood and adulthood, forced to shoulder responsibilities and sorrows that would crush someone with many years more experience, it can sometimes be all too easy for them to hang onto some of the behaviour that reassures them they are still children, after all. That probably sounds like a contradiction, but…”

“No, I understand.” Angel looked at Giles with new comprehension, thinking of Wesley and Cordelia with their arms folded in a thoroughly childish fit of indignation about him taking time off from being their surrogate parent to indulge his own emotional immaturity. “I really do. I was kind of a single parent for a while back there.”

“I know.” Giles looked at him compassionately. “I know you lost your child, Angel, and just because I don’t approve of your reaction to that loss does not in any way mean that I don’t appreciate the depth of your grief over…”

“No, I didn’t mean Connor. For once.” He managed a wan smile. “I meant Wes and Cordy. They were sort of my child substitutes for a while. Wes was particularly clingy, needy and in need of therapy but Cordy was as bad as he was about assuming I had nothing better to do than take care of them twenty-four-seven. I’ll never get Wesley to admit it but the best thing I ever did for him – after taking him in and trying to fix his shattered self esteem – was going all darkside on them, firing them, and forcing him to stand on his own two feet. I’m not saying they enjoyed the experience or that there was anything justifiable about my behaviour during that time – but it was what they needed to grow up.”

Giles inclined his head. “They certainly seem grown up now.”

“Cordy knows she has a place in the world. She knows she has something unique that gives her a way to contribute. I know what people see when they look at her – ex-cheerleader, wannabe actress. That’s not even scratching the surface of who she is now. She’s someone who went on carrying the incredibly painful visions from the Powers That Be even though she knew they were killing her because she could save some more lives before her head exploded. She let them make her part demon so she could go on doing good. She may still dress and sound like the biggest bitch in Sunnydale but her actions really do speak louder than her words.”

“What about Wesley?” Giles asked curiously.

“Wesley’s a…work in progress. We have some trust issues to work through but we’re doing that.” Angel sighed. “Giles, if I really thought that he was better off in England…”

Giles held up a hand. “I know. I talked to Wesley. He was very clear about only being able to work through his redemption here. He’s acutely conscious of the wrong he did you and he wants to make amends. And – I do believe that you have all in the past provided him with something that he never knew until he came here.”

Angel frowned. “What’s that?”

“A loving family.” Giles turned away. “I’ve met Wesley’s father. Quite recently. He took my mentioning that I knew his son as a veiled insult. I suspect one needs look no further for Wesley’s self-esteem issues than there.”

“He used to lock him under the stairs.” Angel had always thought he would carry that piece of information to the dust heap with him, but he felt the need to make it clear that they weren’t just being unreasonable; weren’t keeping Wesley from better care than they could provide. “Was always telling him he wasn’t good enough. I don’t think he ever showed him any affection or gave him any praise. Wesley used to get tears in his eyes if Cordy or I said anything kind to him. That isn’t normal in a guy of his age. He’d just – never experienced it before.”

“Well…” Giles half-smiled. “He is English, you know.”

“We make allowances.”

Giles looked at him curiously for a moment. “You don’t sound like someone who hates Wesley.”

Angel wondered what conversation they had just been having where that could still be an issue. “Of course I… You think I hate him?”

“Wesley said you took him in and trusted him and he betrayed you. He said you hated him now. He seemed to think that was no more than he deserved.”

Angel felt his guts twist. “It wasn’t like that. He – was just trying to do the right thing. He was trying to protect the people he cared about. I can’t ever think he made the right choice but he didn’t do it for any reason except to try to save my son and save me from the guilt of having murdered him. I know that. On some level, perhaps I’ve always known it, but you don’t know how it felt, Giles… I worked so hard to keep Connor safe. There was danger all around him and Wesley picks him up and carries him straight into the worst of it. Connor had never known anything except people who loved him and I have to see him carried into a hell dimension by my worst enemy – all because of Wesley. I wanted to hurt Wesley as much as he’d hurt me but I don’t hate him. The person I tried to kill in the hospital – that wasn’t Wesley, that was someone I had to tell myself deserved to pay for all the misery I was feeling; the only person left to make pay for it. I called him ‘Pryce’ for a reason when I was trying to smother him.”

Giles picked up another cooking pot and examined it. “He said some woman called Lilah something likened him to Judas Iscariot. He seemed to think that was a fair comparison as well.”

Angel winced. “She really is a first class bitch. And she had a vested interest in convincing him there was no point in trying to mend fences with us because she wanted to recruit him to Wolfram & Hart.”

“Angel, I have no influence over Wesley and no say in this at all but I do have reservations about him being here on some kind of sufferance – treated like a second-class citizen while he has to Uriah Heep his way around the hotel being grateful for scraps of diluted friendship from people who are never going to fully trust him again. You both seem to think that he betrayed you. If that’s the case then how well are you going to be able to work together?”

Angel leaned against the counter top, looking up at the various pots and pans hanging from their hooks. “I don’t know. But I’d like to give working together again a try and see how it turns out. We have a lot of history and most of it’s good. Same with him and Gunn, him and Cordy, him and Fred, him and Lorne. We’ve been through a lot together. Maybe this is just something else we have to ride out. I used to rip people’s throats out for fun. He doesn’t let that sit between us and fester. I’ll try to do the same about the fact my son is dead because of him.”

“Well, it’s your decision, but I think Wesley is at the end of his rope. After what happened with Connor and then in that other dimension, I think he may be very close to snapping.”

Angel gazed intently into Giles’s face. “What did he say to you?”

“I don’t like betraying his confidence but…people like Wesley and myself, we’re not – terribly well equipped to deal with our emotions. We were brought up to repress them and consequently never found a way to articulate them. To be honest he and I hardly know one another. We spent a few months working together in an atmosphere of mutual irritation, very loosely bound together by a common cause. But he…”

“What?” Angel was seriously concerned now and Giles’s hesitation made his anxiety worse.

Giles took a deep breath. “He broke down, Angel. If he can start crying on the end of the phone to me, I have to think he’s pretty close to the edge. You said it yourself – he hadn’t known a lot of kindness before he came to LA. I think you and Cordelia may have shown him almost too much. Certainly more than he can easily bear to lose. If you really can’t accept him back into the – bosom of your dysfunctional family I think it would be kinder of you to separate the ties between you and…”

“Giles, Angelus and the other Gunn...” Angel broke off not knowing how to proceed. “It was – bad, what they did to him.”

Giles gave him a straight look. “I know what being tortured by Angelus entails, Angel.”

“It was worse than what I did to you.” Angel held his gaze. “Much worse.”

Giles’s eyes widened. “Is Wesley…intact?”

“They didn’t castrate him. They –” _Emasculated him by other means_. Angel grimaced. No way was he saying that aloud. He picked his words carefully: “You’ve read the file, you know the fun things Angelus used to do to the ones he kept alive. That’s what those two did to him – Angelus and the vampire Gunn from the other dimension. Rinse and repeat. For six days. The fact he’s sane at all is the real miracle here. I’m not surprised he broke down on the phone to you. I’m just amazed he’s coping as well as he is.”

“Good Lord.” Giles removed his glasses and began to clean them, gazing fixedly at the presumably blurry pots and pans as he did so. “I had no idea…”

“Those two weren’t just soulless bloodsuckers, they were sadistic evil monsters who majored in causing pain and degradation and I can never undo what they did to him. I can’t make it go away. I can’t make it not have happened. Any more than I can make what happened to Connor go away, or make what happened in the hospital go away. Everything is new between us because I don’t even know who this version of Wesley is. I’m not sure he does either and the dust hasn’t even settled yet. There are some things you can’t walk away from and be the same person you were before. I can’t be who I was before I lost my son and neither can Wesley. But I know what Angelus is capable of better than anyone else in this dimension. And I’m the person who holds the key to his redemption, because I’m the only person who can tell him that I forgive him.”

“Do you think you ever could?” Giles pressed.

“I think I already have.” Angel tried to shift through his own confusion of emotions. “I think I just needed to find a way to do that which didn’t feel as if it was a betrayal of my son.” He gazed at Giles intently. “Don’t tell anyone else – about Wesley – will you?”

“Certainly not.” Giles looked horrified. “I wouldn’t dream of… I just wish… What a bloody awful mess.”

“Yes.” Angel saw no point in denying it.

“Is he going to have some kind of…therapy?”

Angel shrugged. “We’re his therapy. We took him in. We took care of him. We killed the people who hurt him. Right now, I think that’s probably the best therapy anyone can give him. That and helping him to do normal things. Well…normal by our standards, which means he gets to research gut-ripping demons with six claws and two horns until he’s well enough to get out there and help us fight them again.”

“You don’t think a change of scenery…?”

“I think if he’s left alone he could still fragment. What those two did to him…”

“With all due respect, Angel, I think what those two did to him still doesn’t compare for traumatic value with what you did to him in the hospital.”

Angel only nodded. “I think you’re right. But I don’t think getting away from me is the answer.”

“I suspect you’re probably right. Are you capable of…” Giles cast around for the right words. “I suppose I mean – showing him affection? Can you bring yourself to…? Can you ever treat him like a friend?”

“He is my friend.” Angel sighed. “He’s my friend who stole my son. Just as I’m his friend who tried to kill him. We can’t go back to being who we were before. We have to go forward.” He looked up at Giles and gave him a smile and shrug. “You want to know how this is going to pan out between us, Giles? Well, I’ll tell you when I know myself, because Wesley and I – we’re still learning a bunch of whole new steps…”

Giles and Willow did stay to lunch, and supper, and, it was decided, would be staying overnight. They strengthened the weakened walls between the two dimensions with a spell of – according to Lorne – considerable power. Lorne did a reading for Willow, and Angel’s hearing was good enough to pick up the anagogic demon telling her that she was at a crossroads and he couldn’t make the decision for her, but he saw good things in green fields for her and a certain someone who was so very much in her thoughts, and by the end of the day Willow had told everyone that she was going back to England with Giles to stay at the coven and try to work on gaining control of her magical abilities. 

Fred ordered in enough food to feed twenty people at least and they ate together in the dining room. Giles was quiet but subtly different with all of them than before. With Wesley he was extremely gentle and kind. He said nothing to him about the irresponsibility of his actions in attempting such a spell and spent a quiet hour with him examining his books, recommending some other titles that he might find of use, and showing enthusiastic interest in some of his rare volumes. Over supper, he soothed Cordelia’s ruffled feathers by asking her about her visions and her new ‘demonisation’. However, on hearing more of the visions and her recent dalliance with a coma, he became concerned and went into the whole nature of the visions in more depth than any of them had ever done. Angel knew that he had been as guilty as everyone else of simply accepting them as part of the package of his redemption, but now Giles dealt with them as the invasive mind-and-body-altering trauma that they were. He asked Cordelia gravely if she was sure that the Powers were benevolent in their intentions and talked about the Old Ones at considerable length. Wesley fetched the books Giles asked for and they all went through the references together, Giles making a powerful case for the possibility that the Old Ones referenced in so many books and the unseen Powers could be one and the same.

Cordelia had started off a little scornful and defensive but by the end of Giles’ quietly determined exposition was looking seriously concerned. She was proud of the visions and her role in carrying them. From cheerleader to seer was a step of which anyone would be proud. But now for the first time they all looked at Cordelia and found themselves wondering if the people behind the visions were entirely benevolent.

“Perhaps I’m being overly cynical,” Giles explained. “Or it could be my classical education. But Powers – plural – suggests god-like creatures, a pan dimensional pantheon which may have their own weaknesses and rivalries. Glory was a god and her intentions were not benevolent although her power was terrifying. You’re all being very trusting that these creatures do have a clearer view than your own – that they are higher and better than you are because they are clearly creatures of great power. But so were the Old Ones, and they bore a more than passing resemblance to the gods of Mount Olympus – quarrelling fallible deities who liked to use the lowly mortals as pieces on a human chess board.”

“We got you,” Gunn nodded. “We’ve all seen _Jason and the Argonauts_.”

Fred looked anxious. “But what does that mean? Does it mean the good guys are really bad guys or what…?”

“It means that there were once beings who walked this dimension of great and terrible power and who, for whatever reason, decided to move onto a different or higher plane but who may still take an interest in the happenings of the world, and whose interest may be benevolent or not. Looking at these scrolls Wesley has translated, it seems apparent that Angel has long been of interest to these Powers. That begs the question – how long? Benevolent powers might take pity upon a creature with a great desire to atone for past sins and want to help him in that endeavour.”

“That’s what they’re doing,” Cordelia insisted. “Helping Angel on the path to his redemption – because he’s unique, because he’s the vampire with the soul that is written about in Wesley’s musty old scrolls.”

“But Angel’s existence – the fact that there is a vampire with a soul currently walking the earth able to carry out the apparently benevolent wishes of these mysterious powers – is entirely dependent upon a set of circumstances that came as a result of many cruel deaths – the first of which was Angel’s own. If the Powers have always intended Angel to be their champion in this time and this world, then they must also have been at the very least content to let a history play out in which countless hundreds died terrifying deaths and Angel himself was cursed to carry an appalling burden of guilt just so that he would be prepared to work through his redemption by doing their wishes.”

“Okay,” Gunn nodded. “Now I’m moving on from Ray Harryhausen and I’m thinking ‘Trust No One’.”

Giles sighed. “I don’t wish to undermine the fabric of your belief system or, Angel, to deny you the hope that you will one day find redemption, but I’ve learned to mistrust systems of absolute authority, that hand out orders without explanations and demand sacrifice without justification. Both my grandfathers died in the First World War as the result of questionable military decisions made by men who were safe in their chambers in London at the time men were choking to death on mustard gas and drowning in the mud of Flanders. You are the front line. Cordelia has already allowed these people to alter her for no other purpose than to make it possible for her to continue to carry the burden of visions which, although are undoubtedly helping to avert a number of deaths, could be a smokescreen for a different plan entirely.”

Cordelia looked wretched. “I don’t understand why you think that.”

Giles looked into her eyes. “How many people have these visions saved so far? A hundred?”

“We don’t know,” Wesley explained. “We don’t know how many people would have died if the various demons we’ve destroyed had been permitted to carry out their individual killing sprees. It could be thousands. It could be considerably less.”

Giles looked across at Angel. “And how many did Angelus kill? If these Powers are ageless and omniscient enough to be able to foretell when a demon is going to arise that can kill a dozen or so misguided worshippers, why didn’t they send whoever was their seer or the champion allied with their seer in the eighteenth century to prevent Darla from ever turning you in the first place or at least to stop your killing spree once it was in full spate? That’s a great deal of demon-fuelled misery they didn’t avert right there.”

Angel looked across at Cordelia and felt exactly as she evidently did – as if someone was trying to take his security blanket away – but he couldn’t deny the truth of Giles’ words. “You may have a point.”

Giles took a deep breath. “I hope you’ll forgive me for being so outspoken but you both have your share of arrogance. You’re important, Angel. These Powers tell you so. You’re of such significance that you feature in prophecies, a pan-dimensional law firm with an investment in the apocalypse is trying to control you, and mysterious higher beings have claimed you as their champion. And, Cordelia, you’re not just an ex-cheerleader any more; you’re the carrier of the visions, the woman who tells Angel what the Powers want him to do next. I don’t think it takes a genius to work out that your genuine desires to do good – your willingness to sacrifice yourselves for the greater good and your belief that the greater good in this case involves you passing onto Angel the wisdom of these mysterious Powers and him carrying out their wishes, could be horribly exploited by a being of sufficient power and ambition. You mentioned that Cordelia’s visions were once hijacked by malevolent humans for their own ends. I would like some assurance from someone that the ‘true’ visions come from a source that is indisputably disinterested in anything but the greater good of the human race.”

Evidently seeing he had thoroughly worried them all, Giles grimaced and sat back in his chair. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

“Complete undermine our belief in everything we hold dear?” Cordelia demanded. “God, Giles, do they hire you out to speak at religious gatherings, too? Do you give pep talks to Catholics about how their god has to really suck or else the Inquisition wouldn’t have happened?”

“I did try that once,” the man deadpanned. “But for some reason they never invited me back.”

Wesley was gazing at the scroll on which the Shanshu prophecy was inscribed with dismay. “But – this is a sacred scroll. It’s cross-referenced in many works. It…” He sighed. “It says things I want to hear. It tells me things I need to believe in. Just like Cordelia with her visions.”

“We have to believe in something.” Angel gazed at Giles, trying to shake off a deep feeling of unease that the man had planted in his breast. “Otherwise – why even bother? Why not just give up now?”

“I suggest you believe in what you’re doing and each other. You are doing good, yes? Keep doing it. Just be sure that what you’re doing is good and that you’re doing it for the right reasons and not as the puppets of someone who has their own reason for wanting to have influence over you.”

“I don’t believe the Powers are evil,” Cordelia said stolidly.

“I’m not saying they are, but I can’t help asking, why, as they could send you a vision when you were in another dimension they couldn’t send you one when you were sunning yourself on a beach in this one? They could have saved Connor from Quor’toth, but they didn’t. I have to wonder why.”

Cordelia opened her mouth to answer and then stopped. “That’s a good point. If they’d shown me Holtz taking him into Quor’toth I could have called Wesley; stopped him getting his throat slit, stopped Justine…”

Angel saw that get through to Cordelia in a way that nothing else had. She had been stubbornly resistant to any suggestion that the Powers could be at fault but this was something she felt deeply – that Connor should have been saved. She turned to Wesley. “Remember when I said that if I ever met them I’d like to punch them in the nose? I’m feeling like that again.”

“Gotta say I’m wondering if Giles has a point,” Gunn observed.

Fred frowned. “I’m wondering why Cordy needs to be part demon. If it is some… If we’re the chess pieces and we’re being moved into position, why does Cordy have to be part demon? Of course, I may as well tell you all – I’m a conspiracy theorist from way back. I find it easier to believe in a Higher Power that’s plotting and laying traps for us than I do in some big glowy omniscient Father Christmas on a cloud.”

“The visions of my princess have saved many lives,” Groo said quietly. 

“Maybe the Powers are as fallible as we are.” Wesley was still looking at the scroll he was holding, Angel noticed. He wondered if he ought to ease it out of his hands but Wesley didn’t seem to want to put it down even for an instant. “Maybe they’re trying to help. Maybe they have a plan. Maybe it’s just not a very good plan.” He looked directly at Angel and Angel found himself thinking how men were supposed to fashion their gods in their own images, or that of their authority figures at least. He’d seen it in Ireland, women so in awe of their priest he was more real to them than the god he was supposed to represent, until probably no god could have competed with him for power, for glamour. And how sons were supposed to see the reflection of god in their fathers. Now Wesley was looking at him curiously as he if was measuring him up for something or measuring something up against him.

“Maybe they want to do good,” Wesley continued thoughtfully. “Want it more than anything else, but aren’t…strategists. Or are strategists but the planning has become so important they’ve forgotten the human cost involved. Or…”

Willow said gently, “I think we should get some sleep.”

Angel noticed Willow looking at Wesley and saw what she was seeing, that they had almost become used to – how wrecked he looked, unshaven and with those shadows under his eyes and the cuts and bruises on his face, how he had to wear his watch above his wrist bone because his arms were so painfully thin it would slide halfway to his elbow if the bone didn’t anchor it in place. He glanced across at Cordelia and saw her running a hand through her hair, not caring that it wasn’t tidy, looking as if she had lost her balance somewhere and was trying to find it. When a woman was that beautiful there was a danger of only seeing her beauty; not noticing the shadows under those big brown eyes, or the exhaustion etched on that lovely face. He thought of them the way they had been before Vocah, before the explosion, before the Hyperion, and wondered if it was he or the Powers who had done this to them.

He got to his feet. “Yes, it’s been a long day.”

Gunn was also looking between Cordelia and Wesley. Cordelia said, “But…how can they be…? Why wouldn’t they save Connor…?”

Groo gently put an arm around her and said, “You need to sleep, princess. Would you like me to recite to you the poetry of the Book of Eshermon? I have always found that such verses soothe me after a battle.”

She glanced up at him and said, “I think I just want… He was so small… Why wouldn’t they save a baby from being taken into hell…?”

Giles winced apologetically as she walked away from the table and then turned to Angel who found himself thinking that it would be a huge cosmic joke upon him if the Powers were as fallible as the mythological gods of Mount Olympus; if the model for all those squabbling pantheons were the same Powers he had been blindly following since he arrived in Los Angeles. The ones who had let Doyle go to his death. Who had told Cordelia the back of her skull would blow out if she didn’t give up the visions then showed her a world where although she was famous it was at the expense of Angel’s sanity and Wesley’s left arm. She was only twenty-two still. Doing good was still new to her; still as shiny and bright as it had once been to him, before a hundred years in a hell dimension had knocked some of that conviction out of him; made him realize the true reality of one step forward and fourteen back that seemed to be the dance steps for his life. Not so difficult to manipulate even a smart girl like Cordelia by appealing to her newly-awakened sense of self-sacrifice. 

They had all been swift enough to condemn Wesley for allowing himself to be fooled by a fake prophecy but what if Giles was right and they’d all been fooled? If not only the Nyazian scrolls but that other precious roll of parchment Wesley was currently clinging onto so hard was just another lie as well? And Connor? What was Connor? Had he been a reward or a punishment? Or had he been a chance and life was random chaos and Angel had no purpose in the world except to be someone who had killed more people than he could ever atone for and yet had to spend his eternity trying anyway?

Giles said, “I’m terribly sorry. I was really just thinking aloud.”

Angel looked up and then looked around the table. Cordelia had gone while he’d been thinking. Gunn had his arm around Fred who was looking pale and shocked, Wesley was still clinging onto that damned scroll. Angel wanted to reach across and yank it out of his hand and throw it across the room, but there was no way to do it that wouldn’t make it look as if it was about him being angry with Wesley when it was all to do with being angry with himself.

Angel got up. “Let’s go to bed. Wes – do you need a hand?” As Wesley continued to look at him blankly, he crossed over to where he was sitting, pulled him to his feet, took the scroll from him and placed it firmly on the table. “You need to sleep.” He pulled Wesley away from the scroll and it was a little like when Wesley had first turned up outside the Hyperion wrapped in that blanket, he was yielding and resistant at the same time, spiky and brittle and bewildered. “You’re tired,” Angel added firmly. “Your legs are like spaghetti.”

Wesley gazed up at him. “But the prophecy…”

“Not now, Wes.” He tightened his grip on him. “Just stop thinking about it, take some painkillers, and get some sleep.” He looked over his shoulder at Giles. “You’ve raised some good points. We can talk about it some more tomorrow. See if we can make some sense of it. Gunn – can you show Giles and Willow to their rooms?” Then he hauled Wesley up the stairs, with him still looking back over his shoulder at the scroll and saying, “But Angel…” while he said, as gently as he could, “Not now, Wes, okay? Not now.”

***


	2. Chapter 2

Part Two

“What are you doing?”

Wesley spun around and found Cordelia standing in his bedroom doorway. “Cordelia, I could have been naked.”

“Seen you naked, no biggie,” she shrugged, coming forward. 

“Please be sure to say that in front of any women I might want to impress, won’t you?”

“Just because you can stand upright more or less unaided doesn’t mean you can start getting snippy. Why are you wearing that?”

Wesley looked down at himself in confusion. “It’s my best suit.”

“You are not wearing a suit and tie just because Giles is coming. You’ll just sit there fiddling with your tie and adjusting your cuffs and looking like a schoolboy who has to see the principal.” She thrust a pair of jeans, a t-shirt and a shirt at him. “The underwear you can choose yourself. But this is what’s going on top. Giles is not the boss of you and just because he’s British and can use sarcasm as a lethal weapon that doesn’t mean you have to go all Watcher-retard on us.”

“I like this suit.” He did, too, very much. 

“Tough.” Cordelia unknotted his tie. “It comes off now. No party manners for Giles.”

“But, Cordelia…”

“The suit is coming off, contusion boy, either with me in the room tugging at it or you being allowed five minutes of privacy to wriggle out of it into these clothes before I tell Fred you were asking for her and she should step right on in without bothering to knock.”

Wesley felt a little awestruck by the depths of her evil sometimes. “It’s the demon in you, isn’t it?”

She pulled off his tie and tossed it onto the bed. “No, sweetie, the demon part is the _good_ half of me. Now, do I have to go all glowy on your ass or are you going to do as the nice lady who _saved your life_ tells you?”

“I could scream,” he pointed out. “Tell Gunn you’re undressing me against my will.”

“Do it,” she invited. “He can help me get you out of the dorkarama clothes into something that makes you look just a tiny bit cool.”

“What’s wrong with this suit?” He looked at the cuffs, which were impeccably stitched. “It’s a good suit. And this is a good shirt.”

“It looks like a school uniform, dorkus.” 

“What’s a dorkus?”

“It’s what happens when a dork and a doofus breed. You know I could just cut you out of that suit. I’m sure I left some scissors around here somewhere…”

“No!” He held up a hand. “I’ll do what you say but only under protest.”

She shoved the jeans, t-shirt and shirt into his arms. “Protest all you like, just make sure you’re wearing these clothes when you come downstairs.”

Then she was gone and Wesley was left sighing and having to laboriously unbutton his shirt and painfully get himself back out of the clothes he had just pulled all those muscles and bruises getting into. All those years of complaining at him that he didn’t own a proper suit and needed to stop wearing cargo pants and corduroy and now she wasn’t letting him wear the one really good suit he owned. Sometimes, he had to admit, he thought Cordelia was the most unreasonable woman on the planet.

 

Cordelia had cleaned very thoroughly the evening before; after vacuuming up every speck of the vampire Gunn and the Angelus from the other dimension, she had moved onto vacuuming and dusting the rest of the lobby. Angel, Groo and Gunn had been press-ganged into helping her – Groo willingly, Angel and Gunn a great deal less willingly. Lorne, Fred, and Wesley had all been sent to bed as soon as the tacos had been eaten to sleep off their headaches and bruises. No one quite liked to stand up to Cordelia when she was in this mood. Groo had said fondly that he believed her ability to give orders and expect them to be obeyed without question proved that she was indeed a natural born monarch. Gunn and Angel had muttered things under their breath which they had not been unwise enough to repeat when Cordelia had asked them to.

With her willing and not-so-willing helpers’ assistance Cordelia had turned the lobby into a place of shining cleanliness; she had even dusted the books in the office and found a glazier who would come in at short notice and repair the doors of the weapons cabinet. 

Angel couldn’t get very excited about Giles and Willow paying a visit. Not that he wasn’t fond of Willow, but he was sure they had every intention of trying to persuade Wesley to leave with them and he knew now that he really didn’t want that to happen. It wasn’t that his pain at losing Connor was any less. He still missed him all the time, still thought he heard him sometimes, automatically making for the stairs until he realized that it couldn’t have been a baby he heard because his baby was lost to a hell dimension. He just didn’t find himself wanting to blame Wesley for it any more. The loss of Connor had subtly evolved in his mind from something that Wesley had traitorously done to him to something that fate and false prophecies and the machinations of lying demons and wronged men had done to both of them. He had already lost his son and nearly lost his friend as well. Enough time had passed and events that had brought it home to him how little he liked the prospect of losing Wesley for good, that he knew he wanted the man to be their researcher again; needed to move onto a place where they could start rebuilding the friendship they had so nearly lost forever. But he couldn’t do that if Giles turned up and dragged Wesley back to England with him.

Perhaps because of Cordelia’s maniacal cleaning, Fred was acting as if Giles and Willow were from Social Services, with the power to take Wesley away from them if they couldn’t prove they were keeping him in a safe and sanitary environment. She had bought bunches of flowers and arranged them around the lobby, while also burning scented candles – that made Angel’s enhanced senses twitch uncomfortably – presumably to overpower the scent of tacos from the night before. 

Angel had put up with it until she had started trying to arrange drapes tastefully across the weapons cabinet, whereupon he had gently but firmly removed the material from her hand.

“Giles and Willow know what we do for a living, Fred. Giles is a Watcher. Willow is a witch. The whole demon slaying thing is not going to come as a shock to them.”

She grimaced. “I was just thinking maybe we should…accentuate the non-demony-killing parts of Wesley’s life. Point out what a nice hotel this is. Show them the real marble and the nice carvings. It’s a pity you blew up the elevator because that was all art deco and very impressive.”

Angel looked at her in bewilderment. “Why?”

“I just don’t want them thinking that we don’t know how to take care of Wesley properly.” As Angel rolled his eyes, she explained: “I was thinking of the arguments they might have – about how when Wesley was in Sunnydale he didn’t get hurt at all but since he’s been working with – well, you – he’s been tortured and blown up and shot and had his throat slashed and nearly got lost in another dimension and all.”

“He’s fighting the forces of evil. And anyway he did end up in hospital in Sunnydale.”

“He did?” Fred lit up in relief and then made another face. “Sorry, that came out wrong. I was just thinking we could use that as a counter-argument.”

“Along with the one about us having the better interior design?” Angel loved Fred, he really did, but there were times when he couldn’t help wishing her brain moved in a way that was at least approaching linear.

“I was working on some others as well,” she countered. “You just got me all flustered. How about we tell them the area outside Caritas is an area of mystical convergence so we need a researcher more than they do?”

“Fred, Giles used to live in Sunnydale – he can see your area of mystical convergence and raise you a Hellmouth.”

“So – why don’t we say that we only have an area of mystical convergence that isn’t all that dangerous as long as you don’t open any portals by reading aloud out of interesting-looking books you might find, so Wesley’s much safer here than he would be if they took him back to Sunnydale and their nasty old Hellmouth?” 

“Wesley’s not a child. They can’t get a court order to repossess him like…lost luggage…” Angel realized he was coming perilously close to floundering in a morass of mixed metaphors and mentally blamed Fred for that too. He wondered in passing if reality would start bending in an effort to get away from itself if she and Willow were left alone for too long. “He’ll go or he’ll stay. It’s up to him – not Giles.”

“Okay.” Fred edged away. “I’ll just…tidy some more. Not because of… Just because it’s polite when you have callers to make everything as nice as you can.”

As Fred slipped back into the office and started placing yet more vases in front of the odd stains on the walls and trying to train a new pot of ivy around a dent in the bookcase, Gunn appeared at Angel’s side, shaking his head. “You gotta tell me – how many centuries does it take before women start to make sense?”

“I’ll let you know when I do.”

“So, this Giles…? Scary guy?”

Angel shrugged. “Just – British. You know. All quiet and tweedy and sipping his tea but inside they still think they ought to be running the world.”

Gunn looked at him sideways. “You gotta history?”

“You could say that.” Angel looked up. “Wait – you don’t mean… You’re not asking if we dated, are you?”

“You _dated_?”

“No! I was just – checking you weren’t asking that.”

“I was so not asking that. And can we just establish right now if there’s anyone out there you dated that I wouldn’t want to know about, I don’t ever need to hear about it, okay? And that goes double for Wesley.”

“Are you asking me if I dated Wesley? Or just saying you don’t want to know who Wesley dated either?”

Gunn rubbed his brow. “Okay, let’s start this conversation again. So, you and this Giles guy – do you and him have some kind of history of maybe arguing or not getting along too well from your time in Sunnydale – details of which I really don’t need to know about? Clear enough?”

“I lost my soul in Sunnydale over the whole…”

“Nothing about you achieving perfect happiness is something I need to know about.”

“I was just going to point out that it was with Buffy and not – anyone else. I wasn’t going to give you details.”

“Still thinking about you doing things I don’t want to think about you doing right now. So – can we move on from the perfect happiness thing?”

“I lost my soul. When I was…Angelus, I killed Giles’s girlfriend and tortured him for information. Then I tried to destroy the world.”

“That Angelus – quite the party guy, isn’t he?” Gunn sighed. “So – you and this Giles guy are you cool about what you – about what Angelus did?”

“We…live around it. There are some things you can’t apologize for. Can’t undo.”

“How true.”

They looked around to see Wesley carefully negotiating the stairs, holding on tightly to the banister, but certainly looking stronger than even the day before. Gunn darted up the stairs to give him a hand, putting an arm around his waist to assist him.

Angel and Wesley exchanged a long look, regret in Wesley’s blue eyes at what had happened undisguised. Angel couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t be too much of a simplification of his feelings, but he could and did take Wesley’s arm to help him over to the banquette.

“Oh! Wesley!” 

Wesley jumped guiltily at Fred’s exclamation. “Yes?”

“I need to get you some tea.” She sped away to where the kettle was while Wesley looked after her in confusion then turned to Gunn for an explanation.

The man waved a hand. “Don’t ask. We have no clue.”

Angel noticed Wesley’s clothes. “Weren’t you going to wear your suit?”

“Cordelia wouldn’t let me.”

“That woman has delusions of grandeur.” Gunn shook his head. “Couple of days as princess of Pylea and she thinks she rules the… Hi, Cordy. My, you’re looking…”

“Like someone who just heard everything you said?”

Gunn said hastily, “I should help Fred with the tea.” 

As he sped off, Wesley looked to Angel for an explanation and the vampire shrugged. “Something in the tacos? Contagious insanity? Willow did a spell on them from long distance?”

“Doesn’t he look nice?” Cordelia tugged at Wesley’s shirt to make it fall at a slightly different angle while looking expectantly at Angel. She scrunched Wesley’s hair with her fingers while he flinched in anticipation. “Stop flinching. I’m not hurting you. Angel? Don’t you think Wesley looks nice not wearing his dork suit and wearing the clothes I specially picked out for him?”

“Gunn and I are having a moratorium on noticing how Wesley looks for the next decade or so.”

“Trying to sidestep the pervert factor,” Gunn explained coming out with a cup of tea which he handed to Wesley.

Cordelia was still scrunching Wesley’s hair with her fingers. “Sheesh, you let the least little thing affect you, don’t you? Where’s your hair gel, Angel?”

“I don’t want my hair to look like Angel’s,” Wesley said desperately.

“And I don’t want to share my hair gel with Wesley,” Angel added.

“I’m not going to make it look like you stuck your finger in a light socket, I just want to…” She marched off in search of product and they all heaved a sigh of relief.

Fred hurried out of the office with a cardboard box in her hands. Wesley opened his mouth to offer to carry it for her until he evidently realized that he couldn’t and closed it again sadly. Angel stepped forward to intercept her. Looking inside he saw several magical artefacts, some of the rarer volumes and a few ancient pamphlets on demonic rituals. 

“I really don’t think Giles and Willow are going to steal from us, Fred,” he said patiently.

“No, it’s just…” Fred opened one of the books, revealing an engraving depicting people having an orgiastic ritual to the greater glory of Lucifer. “These are the…dirtiest. I don’t want them thinking…”

Angel gazed at the very phallic looking Nirvalan weather lance and raised an eyebrow. “I get your point.”

She lowered her voice: “All of us living here, like this, not married and all… They might… you know…”

Before Angel could come up with a reasonable argument for why Fred should not be hiding all the most pornographic things they possessed under her bed, she had scurried upstairs.

Gunn and Wesley both looked at him for an explanation. Angel shrugged helplessly. “She’s trying to give the hotel a PG rating. In case Giles assumes we’re having evil orgiastic demon-raising Tupperware parties or something...”

“I didn’t know you could use Tupperware for that,” Wesley admitted, sipping his tea –before sloshing into his saucer after uttering a barely stifled yelp when Cordelia stuck her gel-covered fingers into his hair without warning. “Cordelia, you can’t just…”

Angel watched in fascination as Cordelia got Wesley’s new trendy hair style to do presumably newer and even trendier things with the aid of the hair gel, including making various bits of it stick up at the back and criss cross on the top. “Wax would be better but I’m used to working miracles with anything that comes to hand.” She beamed at them triumphantly. “How does he look now?”

Gunn put his head on one side. “With the hair and the designer stubble and the clothes? Like a male model who got mugged on his way to the photo shoot.”

Angel sighed. “Cordelia, what Gunn is trying to point out is that no one is going to be looking at Wesley’s hair when he very obviously got thrown head first into a weapon’s cabinet yesterday.”

Cordelia’s eyes lit up. “Of course! Make up!” She headed off purposefully.

Wesley turned to Angel and Gunn with something approaching desperation in his eyes. “Please. Make her stop.”

“I don’t think we can,” Gunn admitted. “Want to make a run for it?”

“You’re not going anywhere!” Cordelia shouted over her shoulder.

“Is that a demon thing?” Angel asked curiously.

Gunn shook his head. “She could always do that.”

Angel did however put his foot down when Cordelia came back with her make-up compact in her hand. Catching her wrist and saying quietly but firmly, “No.”

“You want him to look he like got thrown head first into a weapons’ cabinet?” 

“Not particularly but as he did I can’t see the point in trying to cover it up. They know the work we do here is dangerous.”

“I could say I walked into a door,” Wesley offered. As they all looked at him in disbelief, he blinked. “Well, that does give you a black eye sometimes. I was always walking into doors at school until they realized I was near sighted.”

“Oh yes, _do_ tell them that.” Cordelia rolled her eyes. “That’ll just put their minds at rest in an instant.”

“Put their minds at rest about what?” he asked in confusion.

They all exchanged looks. Angel sighed. “About the beating and starving and locking in closets of you that we all do.”

“What?”

“That they think we do. Think _I_ do anyway.”

Wesley’s confusion showed no signs of abating. “Why did you tell Giles you beat me and starved me and locked me in cupboards?”

“I didn’t. He just…assumed.”

“Why would he assume that?”

“Because I’m the big bad vampire who tried to smother you in the hospital.”

There was an awkward silence in which Cordelia and Gunn both grimaced at one another and Angel and Wesley exchanged another of those long looks that always made Angel feel as if they’d had a three-hour conversation.

Quietly, Wesley said, “I see. And has Giles somehow forgotten that you’re also the big bad vampire who after I stole your son still took me in when I turned up bleeding on your doorstep?”

They exchanged another look. Angel realized how much he would have missed those. Wesley was the only person he’d ever been able to communicate with through something that approximated to telepathy, but they definitely needed eye contact to make it work. Transatlantic phone calls would not have been the same. “What are you going to tell Giles?”

“We already…” Wesley broke off as the doors opened to admit Giles, looking unexpectedly non-tweedy – in fact wearing jeans, a soft mauve sweater and a very nice suede jacket, and Willow looking tired but very pretty in something red and pink and vaguely tasselled that should have clashed with her hair but didn’t.

“See…” Cordelia nudged Wesley in the back. “You didn’t need to wear a suit.”

Willow beamed at Angel, which wrong-footed him more than any glare of disapproval would have done. She came forward and gave him a hug which confused him even more. He’d almost forgotten in his anxiety over this meeting that he and Willow had none of the issues that he and Giles did. She stood back to look him over. “You’re looking very…dark avengery.”

He couldn’t help smiling at her. “And you’re looking very…Willowy.” 

She came over to the others, smiling at them all cheerfully, “Hi, Cordy, you’re looking really…great, and Wesley you’re looking really…” She grimaced. “Um…kind of like someone threw you through a window.”

“It was the weapons cabinet,” Fred said, hastily amending. “Not really through it – because it’s up against the wall but sort of into it. But – that hardly ever happens here. It was definitely a one-off.” Seeing Willow’s gently encouraging expression she shot out a hand. “I’m Fred. Short for Winifred. Burkle. I live here, along with Angel – but not _with_ Angel like that because that would just be… Although I did have a crush for a while but I’m so over that now, it was really just a reaction to not living in a cave any more. I live with Charles now. That’s Charles.”

Gunn gave himself a little shake. A common experience Angel had noticed when Fred was allowed to get into full spate. He held out a hand. “Charles Gunn.”

Angel could hear the introductions continuing behind him as Giles came over to him. “Angel.”

“Giles.”

There was a pause before Giles said, “Buffy and Dawn send their regards.”

Angel raised an eyebrow. “What, no hug from Xander?” He became aware of Wesley shifting uncomfortably and knew Wesley was watching his interaction with Giles anxiously. Sighing, Angel decided to play nice to save Wesley’s shattered nerves. He glanced over at him and gave him a reassuring look but Wesley still looked as if only years of being whacked over the knuckles with a ruler by implacable teachers was stopping him from biting his nails right now. Although come to think of it they probably didn’t do that any more. It was almost more scary to think Wesley had grown up the way he had in an era of no corporal punishment than one with the knuckle-rappings and canings of the past.

Wesley tugged at Fred’s sleeve and murmured something to her and she sprang up like someone had run a thousand volts through her, making everyone around her jolt anxiously too. “Tea! I’ll make tea.” She looked at Giles. “You’d like tea, yes?”

Giles looked at her in some perplexity. “Yes, thank you, a cup of tea would be very…” But she had darted into the office.

“She spent five years in a cave,” Gunn explained.

“In my home dimension.” Lorne took a strengthening sip of his sea breeze just at the thought of it. “Pylea isn’t exactly friendly to the humankind.”

“Groo’s from Pylea.” Cordelia pulled him forward proudly, Groo having tried to modestly hang back. “I was made Princess.”

“A life’s ambition realized…” Giles murmured.

Cordelia looked at him narrowly. “So, Giles – are those mid-life crisis clothes or are you just trying really hard to get laid?”

Willow said hastily, “So – has there been any activity that suggests the gateway to the other dimension is still open…?”

Angel decided to leave that explanation to everyone else, moving a little apart to try to calm his jangled nerves. One day he probably would be able to hear the name ‘Buffy’ without it resonating through him like an electric shock. It seemed a little unfair that he was currently suffering from jealousy over Cordelia’s preference for Groo _and_ still feeling like someone had stuck a kopek in his guts and twisted it every time Buffy was mentioned. 

Willow was listening wide-eyed to the saga of the visiting Angelus and demon Gunn, while Giles was frowning and taking notes.

“You have a videotape of it? Them coming here? Does it show the portal activity?”

Wesley turned to Gunn with a begging look that no one could possibly have misinterpreted, and Gunn said quickly, “No. Sorry – it – static – interference. Couldn’t really see or hear anything.” Adding sotto voce: ‘Wes, stop with the eyes…’

“The point is they’re dead.” Cordelia took one of the cups from the tray Fred brought out while Giles thanked her gravely for his. “So, the portal going swirly or whooshy or just crackle-a-lot doesn’t really matter any more because they won’t be coming through it. And you’ve got the spell, right? The one that Brain of Britain here decided to use to get himself there. So, can you close it or not?”

“Yes,” Willow said decisively. “I’m sure we can. It’s just a pity about the videotape because it would have been easier if we could have seen if it was kind of whooshy or crackly. Maybe I could run it through my computer and see if I can clean up the images.”

Wesley once again whammied Gunn with the full-on angst eyes and the taller man said hastily, “Tossed it. Sorry. We weren’t sure if it was – carrying different dimension germs or something so we threw it in the incinerator.”

“We did?” Fred looked at him in surprise. Gunn nudged her and jerked his head at Wesley’s angsty face and she hastily amended: “Oh yes, we did. Burned it right up.”

Giles looked around the hotel. “And you people run a detective agency, yes?”

Fred nodded. “We help the helpless and investigate paranormal and demonic happenings.” She held out a fan of cards from the front desk.

“Lot of undercover work is there in your line of business?” Giles enquired dryly, taking the cards. He looked through them all. “Angel, Cordelia Chase, Charles Gunn, Winifred Burkle.”

Cordelia said without a flicker of shame at the falsehood, “Wesley’s are being reprinted – they usually try to put extra ‘h’s in his name but this time they just spelt Pryce with an ‘i’. He hates it when they do that. Worse than when they forget his hyphen. You should see the sulking. And Groo and Lorne aren’t actually on the payroll. Groo’s kind of a freelance champion and Lorne is really a houseguest – on account of us making him homeless by getting his nightclub destroyed.”

“Three times.” Lorne took another sip of his drink. “That’s the point where I decided I could take a hint from the Powers That Whatever You. And, you know – Krevlorneswath of the Deathwok Clan – doesn’t fit so well on a business card– although I’ve always thought it would really look really good picked out in lights.”

Giles handed back the cards to Fred while still looking at Wesley. “So – Wesley…?”

“We’ve already been through this.” Cordelia folded her arms in her best ‘none shall pass’ manner. “Wesley doesn’t want to go back to Sunnydale in this dimension or any other dimension. And I don’t get why people keep trying to take him back there anyway. It’s not like anyone even gave him the time of day when he was there except for me.”

Wesley murmured, “Giles was very patient.”

“I went to see him in the hospital,” Willow protested. “And I made him a get well soon card too. It had a little cricket bat on it and everything.”

Fred beamed at Willow. “That was so sweet.”

“I’m not in Sunnydale any more, Cordelia,” Giles said quietly. “I live in England now. I was only wondering if…”

Angel found he couldn’t stay silent any longer. “Well, Wesley doesn’t want to go there either. And like Cordelia said, why the sudden interest? None of you gave a damn about him when the Council fired him and he had nowhere to go and no money to get there. That six months he was rogue demon hunting his way into a place where he had no food, no sleep, nowhere to stay and a very good chance of getting himself killed, how many times did you try to find him? Or even spare him a thought?”

Giles glared at him. “You have no idea how many thoughts I’ve spared Wesley over the years or how many times I’ve wondered if he knows what a risk he’s taking…”

“I know. Working for the big bad vampire! Once a Council guy, always a Council guy, right, Giles? Well, I’m getting a little sick of everyone looking at me and seeing baby-eating rapist murderer vampire just because in another dimension… Did everyone start edging away from Willow after that vampire version of her turned up in Sunnydale?”

Cordelia said, “Well, let’s be honest, Angel, ordinary Willow wears fluffy pink sweaters, it was a bit of a stretch to start seeing her as evil Willow, mistress of bondage, just because she wriggled her way into a clinging costume for a few hours and pretended to be her evil twin. I mean, Wesley got into those leather pants just fine but that didn’t make him a member of the Village People, did it?”

Wesley blinked. “I thought they – didn’t they make me look sort of rugged and dangerous?”

Cordelia glanced at him. “We weren’t going to tell you but, no, Wes, they made you look like you should have been working Santa Monica Boulevard. Did you really wear those from Sunnydale to Los Angeles without getting your ass pinched?”

Angel nudged her. “Cordy…”

She grimaced. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to…”

“And I see tact is still a strong point.” Willow took a deep breath. “Can we stop with the shouting and the accusing and the general bad vibeyness?”

Lorne nodded. “Thank you for saying it, sweetpea. After yesterday’s bad vibeathon I really don’t need any more hollering and recriminating.”

Angel rolled his eyes. “I’m just sick of people turning up here who don’t even know Wesley the way we do and thinking that they know what’s best for him and that he’s going to be better off with them. Why would he be?”

“Perhaps because we don’t try to smother him with pillows?” Giles suggested.

Angel glowered at him. “You undermined his self-esteem. If you’d been nicer to him in Sunnydale…”

“Can we please not do this?” Wesley looked up at them and at the sight of his various cuts and bruises everyone winced again. “I don’t want to go to England. I don’t want to go to Sunnydale. But I will go absolutely anywhere right now if it means people will stop talking about me as if I’m not here.”

Angel grimaced. “Sorry – we could go outside and talk about you if you like?”

“I’m not here to take Wesley back to England.” Giles glared at Angel. “He and I spoke about this yesterday and he’s already told me he wants to stay here – although why I really can’t imagine.”

“Oh.” Angel looked at Wesley. “I didn’t know you’d spoken to Giles.”

“It was just before Angelus and the other Gunn turned up…” Wesley grimaced. “Sorry.”

Angel turned back to Giles awkwardly. “It’s just – the other Giles was all gung-ho about taking Wesley back with them to their dimension too.”

“Didn’t they have one there?” Willow asked in concern.

“There’s was a bit…dented. They had a Willow, though, and a Xander, and Buffy, and Faith. Just none of…” he gestured awkwardly at his companions, “…us. Faith said she wanted our Wesley for her Watcher but I think she was just hoping he could help out with therapy for their Wesley – and I think it would have traumatized the other Wesley anyway. Seeing another version of yourself – not a nice experience.”

Willow nodded emphatically. “You can say that again. Especially when they’re skanky and evil.”

“I’m not particularly skanky or evil,” Wesley pointed out.

“The other Gunn and Angelus were beyond skanky and evil,” Fred told Willow. “They were the skankiest evillest vampires to ever walk the earth. I really didn’t like them.”

“It’s so good you and Cordy dusted them.”

“I dusted the other me,” Gunn protested.

“Only because we distracted him for you,” Cordelia insisted.

“Wesley saved me.” Fred looked at Wesley so fondly that Angel wondered not for the first time if she was actually dating the right guy or if some inconvenient light bulb was going to go off at her head at a later date where she suddenly realized Wesley was the one for her. It would probably help if Wesley stopped with the enigmatic broody angsty whumped guy thing and stopped gazing at her with the big blue puppy dog eyes too. As someone who had used the enigmatic broody angsty whumped vampire thing and the big brown puppy dog eyes on more than one occasion himself; he knew how effective a combination they could be. Fred was blissfully unaware of any such thoughts and beamed at Willow. “He was so brave. He stalled them while Lorne helped get me to safety. And then when we got down the fire escape Angel and the others were just coming back. So we made our cunning plan to rescue Wesley and totally dusted the evil bad guys.”

Gunn looked at Lorne. “Still think you should have let me piss on their dust.”

Fred nudged him, saying hastily, “No, we would never do that, because that would just be unsanitary.”

Angel looked at her. “Fred, you do know that Giles and Willow aren’t from the public health department or social services and even if we had rats in the basement they still couldn’t take Wesley out of here without his consent?”

Fred shifted uncomfortably. “I know. I was just… I know.”

Giles drained his tea, looked at Willow and said, “Shall we close that inter-dimensional tear then, Willow?”

“Love to.” She put her teacup back on the tray Fred was still holding, smiled at her, patted her tentatively on the shoulder, said, “Well, it was really nice talking to you all but I really think we need to…go and do witchy portally-closing things now.”

Fred looked at her hopefully. “Will you stay for lunch because we were thinking…?”

“Sorry,” Giles said hastily. “Not this time. On the next visit, perhaps. This way to the basement is it, Angel?”

“I’ll show you.” Realizing that he had been so defensive about them taking Wesley away that he had not exactly been the perfect host, Angel hurried to make amends, sprinting across to hold open the door, then putting on the light, taking Willow’s bag from her and carrying it down into the basement. “It was… Actually, I don’t know where it was. Wesley would probably. Do you want me to…?”

“It’s okay.” Willow held up her hands. “It’s pretty clear where it was. The air’s still fizzing. Why don’t you go and…”

“Let us get on with it,” Giles suggested.

Angel nodded and backed away awkwardly, relieved to sprint back up the stairs and close the door on them. He leant against it and saw everyone was looking equally relieved.

“That could have gone better…” Wesley said faintly.

“I think I liked the other Giles more,” Fred murmured to Gunn. “This one is kind of scary. Is that how Watchers get in this dimension when they get to that age?”

Everyone looked speculatively at Wesley for a moment. Cordelia said, “How many years older than you is Giles, Wesley?”

“About twelve I think.” Wesley looked up at her in confusion. “Why?”

“Just checking.”

“Maybe it’s living on a Hellmouth?” Gunn suggested.

Angel sighed. He knew he’d behaved badly to Giles. He knew Wesley knew it too. He was going to have to make sure those two got some time together before Giles and Willow headed back so Wesley could talk to Giles in peace and without fear of being overheard. Something he would have arranged this time if he hadn’t been feeling so defensive about his actions, their recent history, and the behaviour of the Angelus from the other dimension. He walked over to where the others were still sitting on the banquette and said quietly: “Maybe it’s being responsible for a group of reckless vulnerable teenagers, having your girlfriend murdered by someone you used to trust, being tortured, fired, almost killed about once a month, and then having to watch your Slayer die right in front of you.”

Angel noticed that everyone was staring fixedly behind him with deer-in-headlights expressions and sighed, closing his eyes. Yes, this was definitely not going to be a good day.

“I need to borrow a receptacle of some kind…”

He turned around to find Giles standing there looking grave and thoughtful. Angel nodded. “There are a few things in the kitchen. Come with me and see if there’s anything that would work.”

They walked to the kitchen in silence. When they reached it at the thought of the long walk back also in silence, Angel said, “Willow looks tired.”

Giles looked at him in surprise. “Yes. She’s had a difficult time recently. She was trying to avoid all magic but this was too important to ignore. Wesley is aware that what he did was extraordinarily irresponsible and dangerous, isn’t he?”

“You’ve seen what he looks like and that’s after weeks of healing. He’s never going to try that again. He knows he could have got Fred and Cordy killed. If those two vampires had followed him straight back when his suicide nut kicked in we wouldn’t have been ready for them. He knows that.”

“Are you certain?”

“He’s a smart guy. If I’m capable of working it out, he certainly is, and he would never do anything to risk Cordelia or Fred’s lives. He was prepared to get dragged back to that hellhole basement in the other dimension and go through it all again to save Fred. He knows it would have done worse than kill him. He knows he would have ended up as insane as that other Wesley. But he was still prepared to do it. Wes does the wrong thing sometimes, it’s true, but he doesn’t usually do it for the wrong reasons.”

Giles ran a hand through his hair. “It still makes me extremely nervous to think that he is dabbling in spells as dark and powerful as that one, and I’m not just being paranoid. Willow has been…on the brink of becoming an addict for some time now. I blame myself for not being here, but I felt Buffy needed a chance to reconnect with Dawn, with life, with herself.”

“Has she?” 

Giles sighed. “Not yet. So far she’s reconnected with a lot of self-loathing and repressed anger. She’s suffered too many blows in too short a time to keep bouncing back with no emotional scar tissue.”

Angel closed his eyes, thinking of that vibrant innocent girl he’d first seen. “I didn’t exactly help that situation.”

“No, you didn’t. But it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know about the fine print of your curse, you certainly aren’t responsible for the actions of Angelus – in this dimension or any other – and you had nothing to do with Joyce’s death or Buffy’s. She was ripped out of paradise by people who love her and whom she can’t therefore hate for what they did to her. She can’t finish college. She’s trying to take care of a sister with a number of problems of her own, and her taste in boyfriends actually appears to be getting worse.”

“Is she seeing someone?”

“Angel, trust me on this, you really don’t want to know.”

Angel picked up a saucepan and realized that Giles was right – he didn’t. It hurt too much and always would hurt too much to know that Buffy had someone in her life who wasn’t him. “You’re probably right. What are you doing about Willow?”

“Taking her back to England with me. That was partly why I was hoping Wesley…”

“He doesn’t need to go to Spellcasters Anonymous, Giles, I swear. Magic to Wesley is a means to an end. He doesn’t get off on the power kick. He just knows how to say the words to make the spell happen. He was trying to fix something he’d done that turned out wrong. He thought about the consequences first. He swallowed that nut even though it might kill him because he wanted to be sure there was a failsafe. Wesley isn’t reckless and the only thing he possibly needs an intervention about is his antiquarian book buying habit. But Willow sounds as if she definitely needs to go with you.”

“There’s a chance Tara will accompany her. I’ve been having lunch with Tara for the past week or so and she still cares for Willow very much. I know a coven in England that might be able to help Willow to find a way to use her powers that isn’t destructive. They have more knowledge than I do and could help her find the necessary balance within herself to deal with her undoubted magical abilities. I don’t want her to have to act like an alcoholic who can never touch another drink. Without being brutal, she is too useful a tool in the fight against evil. But I’m worried that if she falls back into her previous abuse of magic it could end up possessing her entirely. Dark magic has a will of its own sometimes.”

Angel thought of Buffy alone in Sunnydale without Giles or Willow. “What about Buffy?”

“I’m afraid Buffy is too overwhelmed by her own problems at the moment to be able to help Willow or anyone else.”

“No, I mean – how will she manage without you both?”

“I have every confidence in Buffy’s ability to realize for herself that she needs to reconnect with the people around her.”

“But if you’re not there…”

“You’re not there either.” Giles’ expression was surprisingly gentle. “And for a good reason.” He examined the saucepan dubiously. “I was hoping for something with a closer resemblance to a cauldron.”

“There may be a cooking pot.” Angel opened cupboards and began to search. Over his shoulder, he said, “I can’t imagine you ever – not being good for Buffy.”

“I can assure you that I was not being good for her at all. When you have people on the cusp of childhood and adulthood, forced to shoulder responsibilities and sorrows that would crush someone with many years more experience, it can sometimes be all too easy for them to hang onto some of the behaviour that reassures them they are still children, after all. That probably sounds like a contradiction, but…”

“No, I understand.” Angel looked at Giles with new comprehension, thinking of Wesley and Cordelia with their arms folded in a thoroughly childish fit of indignation about him taking time off from being their surrogate parent to indulge his own emotional immaturity. “I really do. I was kind of a single parent for a while back there.”

“I know.” Giles looked at him compassionately. “I know you lost your child, Angel, and just because I don’t approve of your reaction to that loss does not in any way mean that I don’t appreciate the depth of your grief over…”

“No, I didn’t mean Connor. For once.” He managed a wan smile. “I meant Wes and Cordy. They were sort of my child substitutes for a while. Wes was particularly clingy, needy and in need of therapy but Cordy was as bad as he was about assuming I had nothing better to do than take care of them twenty-four-seven. I’ll never get Wesley to admit it but the best thing I ever did for him – after taking him in and trying to fix his shattered self esteem – was going all darkside on them, firing them, and forcing him to stand on his own two feet. I’m not saying they enjoyed the experience or that there was anything justifiable about my behaviour during that time – but it was what they needed to grow up.”

Giles inclined his head. “They certainly seem grown up now.”

“Cordy knows she has a place in the world. She knows she has something unique that gives her a way to contribute. I know what people see when they look at her – ex-cheerleader, wannabe actress. That’s not even scratching the surface of who she is now. She’s someone who went on carrying the incredibly painful visions from the Powers That Be even though she knew they were killing her because she could save some more lives before her head exploded. She let them make her part demon so she could go on doing good. She may still dress and sound like the biggest bitch in Sunnydale but her actions really do speak louder than her words.”

“What about Wesley?” Giles asked curiously.

“Wesley’s a…work in progress. We have some trust issues to work through but we’re doing that.” Angel sighed. “Giles, if I really thought that he was better off in England…”

Giles held up a hand. “I know. I talked to Wesley. He was very clear about only being able to work through his redemption here. He’s acutely conscious of the wrong he did you and he wants to make amends. And – I do believe that you have all in the past provided him with something that he never knew until he came here.”

Angel frowned. “What’s that?”

“A loving family.” Giles turned away. “I’ve met Wesley’s father. Quite recently. He took my mentioning that I knew his son as a veiled insult. I suspect one needs look no further for Wesley’s self-esteem issues than there.”

“He used to lock him under the stairs.” Angel had always thought he would carry that piece of information to the dust heap with him, but he felt the need to make it clear that they weren’t just being unreasonable; weren’t keeping Wesley from better care than they could provide. “Was always telling him he wasn’t good enough. I don’t think he ever showed him any affection or gave him any praise. Wesley used to get tears in his eyes if Cordy or I said anything kind to him. That isn’t normal in a guy of his age. He’d just – never experienced it before.”

“Well…” Giles half-smiled. “He is English, you know.”

“We make allowances.”

Giles looked at him curiously for a moment. “You don’t sound like someone who hates Wesley.”

Angel wondered what conversation they had just been having where that could still be an issue. “Of course I… You think I hate him?”

“Wesley said you took him in and trusted him and he betrayed you. He said you hated him now. He seemed to think that was no more than he deserved.”

Angel felt his guts twist. “It wasn’t like that. He – was just trying to do the right thing. He was trying to protect the people he cared about. I can’t ever think he made the right choice but he didn’t do it for any reason except to try to save my son and save me from the guilt of having murdered him. I know that. On some level, perhaps I’ve always known it, but you don’t know how it felt, Giles… I worked so hard to keep Connor safe. There was danger all around him and Wesley picks him up and carries him straight into the worst of it. Connor had never known anything except people who loved him and I have to see him carried into a hell dimension by my worst enemy – all because of Wesley. I wanted to hurt Wesley as much as he’d hurt me but I don’t hate him. The person I tried to kill in the hospital – that wasn’t Wesley, that was someone I had to tell myself deserved to pay for all the misery I was feeling; the only person left to make pay for it. I called him ‘Pryce’ for a reason when I was trying to smother him.”

Giles picked up another cooking pot and examined it. “He said some woman called Lilah something likened him to Judas Iscariot. He seemed to think that was a fair comparison as well.”

Angel winced. “She really is a first class bitch. And she had a vested interest in convincing him there was no point in trying to mend fences with us because she wanted to recruit him to Wolfram & Hart.”

“Angel, I have no influence over Wesley and no say in this at all but I do have reservations about him being here on some kind of sufferance – treated like a second-class citizen while he has to Uriah Heep his way around the hotel being grateful for scraps of diluted friendship from people who are never going to fully trust him again. You both seem to think that he betrayed you. If that’s the case then how well are you going to be able to work together?”

Angel leaned against the counter top, looking up at the various pots and pans hanging from their hooks. “I don’t know. But I’d like to give working together again a try and see how it turns out. We have a lot of history and most of it’s good. Same with him and Gunn, him and Cordy, him and Fred, him and Lorne. We’ve been through a lot together. Maybe this is just something else we have to ride out. I used to rip people’s throats out for fun. He doesn’t let that sit between us and fester. I’ll try to do the same about the fact my son is dead because of him.”

“Well, it’s your decision, but I think Wesley is at the end of his rope. After what happened with Connor and then in that other dimension, I think he may be very close to snapping.”

Angel gazed intently into Giles’s face. “What did he say to you?”

“I don’t like betraying his confidence but…people like Wesley and myself, we’re not – terribly well equipped to deal with our emotions. We were brought up to repress them and consequently never found a way to articulate them. To be honest he and I hardly know one another. We spent a few months working together in an atmosphere of mutual irritation, very loosely bound together by a common cause. But he…”

“What?” Angel was seriously concerned now and Giles’s hesitation made his anxiety worse.

Giles took a deep breath. “He broke down, Angel. If he can start crying on the end of the phone to me, I have to think he’s pretty close to the edge. You said it yourself – he hadn’t known a lot of kindness before he came to LA. I think you and Cordelia may have shown him almost too much. Certainly more than he can easily bear to lose. If you really can’t accept him back into the – bosom of your dysfunctional family I think it would be kinder of you to separate the ties between you and…”

“Giles, Angelus and the other Gunn...” Angel broke off not knowing how to proceed. “It was – bad, what they did to him.”

Giles gave him a straight look. “I know what being tortured by Angelus entails, Angel.”

“It was worse than what I did to you.” Angel held his gaze. “Much worse.”

Giles’s eyes widened. “Is Wesley…intact?”

“They didn’t castrate him. They…” _Emasculated him by other means_. Angel grimaced. No way was he saying that aloud. He picked his words carefully: “You’ve read the file, you know the fun things Angelus used to do to the ones he kept alive. That’s what those two did to him – Angelus and the vampire Gunn from the other dimension. Rinse and repeat. For six days. The fact he’s sane at all is the real miracle here. I’m not surprised he broke down on the phone to you. I’m just amazed he’s coping as well as he is.”

“Good Lord.” Giles removed his glasses and began to clean them, gazing fixedly at the presumably blurry pots and pans as he did so. “I had no idea…”

“Those two weren’t just soulless bloodsuckers, they were sadistic evil monsters who majored in causing pain and degradation and I can never undo what they did to him. I can’t make it go away. I can’t make it not have happened. Any more than I can make what happened to Connor go away, or make what happened in the hospital go away. Everything is new between us because I don’t even know who this version of Wesley is. I’m not sure he does either and the dust hasn’t even settled yet. There are some things you can’t walk away from and be the same person you were before. I can’t be who I was before I lost my son and neither can Wesley. But I know what Angelus is capable of better than anyone else in this dimension. And I’m the person who holds the key to his redemption, because I’m the only person who can tell him that I forgive him.”

“Do you think you ever could?” Giles pressed.

“I think I already have.” Angel tried to shift through his own confusion of emotions. “I think I just needed to find a way to do that which didn’t feel as if it was a betrayal of my son.” He gazed at Giles intently. “Don’t tell anyone else – about Wesley – will you?”

“Certainly not.” Giles looked horrified. “I wouldn’t dream of… I just wish… What a bloody awful mess.”

“Yes.” Angel saw no point in denying it.

“Is he going to have some kind of…therapy?”

Angel shrugged. “We’re his therapy. We took him in. We took care of him. We killed the people who hurt him. Right now, I think that’s probably the best therapy anyone can give him. That and helping him to do normal things. Well…normal by our standards, which means he gets to research gut-ripping demons with six claws and two horns until he’s well enough to get out there and help us fight them again.”

“You don’t think a change of scenery…?”

“I think if he’s left alone he could still fragment. What those two did to him…”

“With all due respect, Angel, I think what those two did to him still doesn’t compare for traumatic value with what you did to him in the hospital.”

Angel only nodded. “I think you’re right. But I don’t think getting away from me is the answer.”

“I suspect you’re probably right. Are you capable of…” Giles cast around for the right words. “I suppose I mean – showing him affection? Can you bring yourself to…? Can you ever treat him like a friend?”

“He is my friend.” Angel sighed. “He’s my friend who stole my son. Just as I’m his friend who tried to kill him. We can’t go back to being who we were before. We have to go forward.” He looked up at Giles and gave him a smile and shrug. “You want to know how this is going to pan out between us, Giles? Well, I’ll tell you when I know myself, because Wesley and I – we’re still learning a bunch of whole new steps…”

 

Giles and Willow did stay to lunch, and supper, and, it was decided, would be staying overnight. They strengthened the weakened walls between the two dimensions with a spell of – according to Lorne – considerable power. Lorne did a reading for Willow, and Angel’s hearing was good enough to pick up the anagogic demon telling her that she was at a crossroads and he couldn’t make the decision for her, but he saw good things in green fields for her and a certain someone who was so very much in her thoughts, and by the end of the day Willow had told everyone that she was going back to England with Giles to stay at the coven and try to work on gaining control of her magical abilities. 

Fred ordered in enough food to feed twenty people at least and they ate together in the dining room. Giles was quiet but subtly different with all of them than before. With Wesley he was extremely gentle and kind. He said nothing to him about the irresponsibility of his actions in attempting such a spell and spent a quiet hour with him examining his books, recommending some other titles that he might find of use, and showing enthusiastic interest in some of his rare volumes. Over supper, he soothed Cordelia’s ruffled feathers by asking her about her visions and her new ‘demonisation’. However, on hearing more of the visions and her recent dalliance with a coma, he became concerned and went into the whole nature of the visions in more depth than any of them had ever done. Angel knew that he had been as guilty as everyone else of simply accepting them as part of the package of his redemption, but now Giles dealt with them as the invasive mind-and-body-altering trauma that they were. He asked Cordelia gravely if she was sure that the Powers were benevolent in their intentions and talked about the Old Ones at considerable length. Wesley fetched the books Giles asked for and they all went through the references together, Giles making a powerful case for the possibility that the Old Ones referenced in so many books and the unseen Powers could be one and the same.

Cordelia had started off a little scornful and defensive but by the end of Giles’ quietly determined exposition was looking seriously concerned. She was proud of the visions and her role in carrying them. From cheerleader to seer was a step of which anyone would be proud. But now for the first time they all looked at Cordelia and found themselves wondering if the people behind the visions were entirely benevolent.

“Perhaps I’m being overly cynical,” Giles explained. “Or it could be my classical education. But Powers – plural – suggests god-like creatures, a pan dimensional pantheon which may have their own weaknesses and rivalries. Glory was a god and her intentions were not benevolent although her power was terrifying. You’re all being very trusting that these creatures do have a clearer view than your own – that they are higher and better than you are because they are clearly creatures of great power. But so were the Old Ones, and they bore a more than passing resemblance to the gods of Mount Olympus – quarrelling fallible deities who liked to use the lowly mortals as pieces on a human chess board.”

“We got you,” Gunn nodded. “We’ve all seen _Jason and the Argonauts_.”

Fred looked anxious. “But what does that mean? Does it mean the good guys are really bad guys or what…?”

“It means that there were once beings who walked this dimension of great and terrible power and who, for whatever reason, decided to move onto a different or higher plane but who may still take an interest in the happenings of the world, and whose interest may be benevolent or not. Looking at these scrolls Wesley has translated, it seems apparent that Angel has long been of interest to these Powers. That begs the question – how long? Benevolent powers might take pity upon a creature with a great desire to atone for past sins and want to help him in that endeavour.”

“That’s what they’re doing,” Cordelia insisted. “Helping Angel on the path to his redemption – because he’s unique, because he’s the vampire with the soul that is written about in Wesley’s musty old scrolls.”

“But Angel’s existence – the fact that there is a vampire with a soul currently walking the earth able to carry out the apparently benevolent wishes of these mysterious powers – is entirely dependent upon a set of circumstances that came as a result of many cruel deaths – the first of which was Angel’s own. If the Powers have always intended Angel to be their champion in this time and this world, then they must also have been at the very least content to let a history play out in which countless hundreds died terrifying deaths and Angel himself was cursed to carry an appalling burden of guilt just so that he would be prepared to work through his redemption by doing their wishes.”

“Okay,” Gunn nodded. “Now I’m moving on from Ray Harryhausen and I’m thinking ‘Trust No One’.”

Giles sighed. “I don’t wish to undermine the fabric of your belief system or, Angel, to deny you the hope that you will one day find redemption, but I’ve learned to mistrust systems of absolute authority, that hand out orders without explanations and demand sacrifice without justification. Both my grandfathers died in the First World War as the result of questionable military decisions made by men who were safe in their chambers in London at the time men were choking to death on mustard gas and drowning in the mud of Flanders. You are the front line. Cordelia has already allowed these people to alter her for no other purpose than to make it possible for her to continue to carry the burden of visions which, although are undoubtedly helping to avert a number of deaths, could be a smokescreen for a different plan entirely.”

Cordelia looked wretched. “I don’t understand why you think that.”

Giles looked into her eyes. “How many people have these visions saved so far? A hundred?”

“We don’t know,” Wesley explained. “We don’t know how many people would have died if the various demons we’ve destroyed had been permitted to carry out their individual killing sprees. It could be thousands. It could be considerably less.”

Giles looked across at Angel. “And how many did Angelus kill? If these Powers are ageless and omniscient enough to be able to foretell when a demon is going to arise that can kill a dozen or so misguided worshippers, why didn’t they send whoever was their seer or the champion allied with their seer in the eighteenth century to prevent Darla from ever turning you in the first place or at least to stop your killing spree once it was in full spate? That’s a great deal of demon-fuelled misery they didn’t avert right there.”

Angel looked across at Cordelia and felt exactly as she evidently did – as if someone was trying to take his security blanket away – but he couldn’t deny the truth of Giles’ words. “You may have a point.”

Giles took a deep breath. “I hope you’ll forgive me for being so outspoken but you both have your share of arrogance. You’re important, Angel. These Powers tell you so. You’re of such significance that you feature in prophecies, a pan-dimensional law firm with an investment in the apocalypse is trying to control you, and mysterious higher beings have claimed you as their champion. And, Cordelia, you’re not just an ex-cheerleader any more; you’re the carrier of the visions, the woman who tells Angel what the Powers want him to do next. I don’t think it takes a genius to work out that your genuine desires to do good – your willingness to sacrifice yourselves for the greater good and your belief that the greater good in this case involves you passing onto Angel the wisdom of these mysterious Powers and him carrying out their wishes, could be horribly exploited by a being of sufficient power and ambition. You mentioned that Cordelia’s visions were once hijacked by malevolent humans for their own ends. I would like some assurance from someone that the ‘true’ visions come from a source that is indisputably disinterested in anything but the greater good of the human race.”

Evidently seeing he had thoroughly worried them all, Giles grimaced and sat back in his chair. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

“Complete undermine our belief in everything we hold dear?” Cordelia demanded. “God, Giles, do they hire you out to speak at religious gatherings, too? Do you give pep talks to Catholics about how their god has to really suck or else the Inquisition wouldn’t have happened?”

“I did try that once,” the man deadpanned. “But for some reason they never invited me back.”

Wesley was gazing at the scroll on which the Shanshu prophecy was inscribed with dismay. “But – this is a sacred scroll. It’s cross-referenced in many works. It…” He sighed. “It says things I want to hear. It tells me things I need to believe in. Just like Cordelia with her visions.”

“We have to believe in something.” Angel gazed at Giles, trying to shake off a deep feeling of unease that the man had planted in his breast. “Otherwise – why even bother? Why not just give up now?”

“I suggest you believe in what you’re doing and each other. You are doing good, yes? Keep doing it. Just be sure that what you’re doing _is_ good and that you’re doing it for the right reasons and not as the puppets of someone who has their own reason for wanting to have influence over you.”

“I don’t believe the Powers are evil,” Cordelia said stolidly.

“I’m not saying they are, but I can’t help asking, why, as they could send you a vision when you were in another dimension they couldn’t send you one when you were sunning yourself on a beach in this one? They could have saved Connor from Quor’toth, but they didn’t. I have to wonder why.”

Cordelia opened her mouth to answer and then stopped. “That’s a good point. If they’d shown me Holtz taking him into Quor’toth I could have called Wesley; stopped him getting his throat slit, stopped Justine…”

Angel saw that get through to Cordelia in a way that nothing else had. She had been stubbornly resistant to any suggestion that the Powers could be at fault but this was something she felt deeply – that Connor should have been saved. She turned to Wesley. “Remember when I said that if I ever met them I’d like to punch them in the nose? I’m feeling like that again.”

“Gotta say I’m wondering if Giles has a point,” Gunn observed.

Fred frowned. “I’m wondering why Cordy needs to be part demon. If it is some… If we’re the chess pieces and we’re being moved into position, why does Cordy have to be part demon? Of course, I may as well tell you all – I’m a conspiracy theorist from way back. I find it easier to believe in a Higher Power that’s plotting and laying traps for us than I do in some big glowy omniscient Father Christmas on a cloud.”

“The visions of my princess have saved many lives,” Groo said quietly. 

“Maybe the Powers are as fallible as we are.” Wesley was still looking at the scroll he was holding, Angel noticed. He wondered if he ought to ease it out of his hands but Wesley didn’t seem to want to put it down even for an instant. “Maybe they’re trying to help. Maybe they have a plan. Maybe it’s just not a very good plan.” He looked directly at Angel and Angel found himself thinking how men were supposed to fashion their gods in their own images, or that of their authority figures at least. He’d seen it in Ireland, women so in awe of their priest he was more real to them than the god he was supposed to represent, until probably no god could have competed with him for power, for glamour. And how sons were supposed to see the reflection of god in their fathers. Now Wesley was looking at him curiously as he if was measuring him up for something or measuring something up against him.

“Maybe they want to do good,” Wesley continued thoughtfully. “Want it more than anything else, but aren’t…strategists. Or are strategists but the planning has become so important they’ve forgotten the human cost involved. Or…”

Willow said gently, “I think we should get some sleep.”

Angel noticed Willow looking at Wesley and saw what she was seeing, that they had almost become used to – how wrecked he looked, unshaven and with those shadows under his eyes and the cuts and bruises on his face, how he had to wear his watch above his wrist bone because his arms were so painfully thin it would slide halfway to his elbow if the bone didn’t anchor it in place. He glanced across at Cordelia and saw her running a hand through her hair, not caring that it wasn’t tidy, looking as if she had lost her balance somewhere and was trying to find it. He thought of them the way they had been before Vocah, before the explosion, before the Hyperion, and wondered if it was he or the Powers who had done this to them.

He got to his feet. “Yes, it’s been a long day.”

Gunn was also looking between Cordelia and Wesley. Cordelia said, “But…how can they be…? Why wouldn’t they save Connor…?”

Groo gently put an arm around her and said, “You need to sleep, princess. Would you like me to recite to you the poetry of the Book of Eshermon? I have always found that such verses soothe me after a battle.”

She glanced up at him and said, “I think I just want… He was so small… Why wouldn’t they save a baby from being taken into hell…?”

Giles winced apologetically as she walked away from the table and then turned to Angel who found himself thinking that it would be a huge cosmic joke upon him if the Powers were as fallible as the mythological gods of Mount Olympus; if the model for all those squabbling pantheons were the same Powers he had been blindly following since he arrived in Los Angeles. The ones who had let Doyle go to his death. Who had told Cordelia the back of her skull would blow out if she didn’t give up the visions then showed her a world where although she was famous it was at the expense of Angel’s sanity and Wesley’s left arm. She was only twenty-two still. Doing good was still new to her; still as shiny and bright as it had once been to him, before a hundred years in a hell dimension had knocked some of that conviction out of him; made him realize the true reality of one step forward and fourteen back that seemed to be the dance steps for his life. Not so difficult to manipulate even a smart girl like Cordelia by appealing to her newly-awakened sense of self-sacrifice. 

They had all been swift enough to condemn Wesley for allowing himself to be fooled by a fake prophecy but what if Giles was right and they’d all been fooled? If not only the Nyazian scrolls but that other precious roll of parchment Wesley was currently clinging onto so hard was just another lie as well? And Connor? What was Connor? Had he been a reward or a punishment? Or had he been a chance and life was random chaos and Angel had no purpose in the world except to be someone who had killed more people than he could ever atone for and yet to spend his eternity trying anyway?

Giles said, “I’m terribly sorry. I was really just thinking aloud.”

Angel looked up and then looked around the table. Cordelia had gone while he’d been thinking. Gunn had his arm around Fred who was looking pale and shocked, Wesley was still clinging onto that damned scroll. Angel wanted to reach across and yank it out of his hand and throw it across the room, but there was no way to do it that wouldn’t make it look as if it was about him being angry with Wesley when it was all to do with being angry with himself.

Angel got up. “Let’s go to bed. Wes – do you need a hand?” As Wesley continued to look at him blankly, he crossed over to where he was sitting, pulled him to his feet, took the scroll from him and placed it firmly on the table. “You need to sleep.” He pulled Wesley away from the scroll and it was a little like when Wesley had first turned up outside the Hyperion wrapped in that blanket, he was yielding and resistant at the same time, spiky and brittle and bewildered. “You’re tired,” Angel added firmly. “Your legs are like spaghetti.”

Wesley gazed up at him. “But the prophecy…”

“Not now, Wes.” He tightened his grip on him. “Just stop thinking about it, take some painkillers, and get some sleep.” He looked over his shoulder at Giles. “You’ve raised some good points. We can talk about it some more tomorrow. See if we can make some sense of it. Gunn – can you show Giles and Willow to their rooms?” Then he hauled Wesley up the stairs, with him still looking back over his shoulder at the scroll and saying, “But Angel…” while he said, as gently as he could, “Not now, Wes, okay? Not now.”

***

It was ironic that when he’d come to LA full of thoughts of Wesley, when there was that soft tapping on his door in the middle of the night, Giles immediately assumed it was Angel. He didn’t blame the vampire for waking him even though it was – he checked the florescent hands of his watch – three in the morning. Giles had casually tossed a spanner into the works of his cosmic redemption. It was no wonder Angel wanted to talk things over without traumatizing his co-workers.

Except when he opened the door it was Wesley standing there in his pyjamas and his dressing gown, or rather leaning against the wall, holding the scroll and with a pile of books on the floor, looking at Giles anxiously, not the anxious look of someone who had woken someone else up at three in the morning, but of a student with a paper that had to be handed in that wasn’t going well.

Giles said, “Wesley, it’s three in the morning.”

Wesley said, “Will you look at this with me?”

Giles could tell at once that the whole ‘three in the morning’ thing just wasn’t happening for Wesley in this conversation. Sighing, he stepped back and held the door open, letting Wesley carry the scroll over to the bed and place it on the coverlet reverentially before heading back to get the books. Giles held up a hand. “I’ll get them.”

As he carried in the books and placed them on the bed he had been so unwilling to vacate he realized how right Angel had been to tell him some of the details of what had been done to Wesley in that other dimension. There was a terrible danger that if Angel hadn’t told him then Giles would have said something regrettable about Wesley’s behaviour in waking him. As things were he did need to call on his patience but at least there was a great deal more patience to draw upon.

“I was thinking about what you said.” Wesley unrolled the scroll and held it out where Giles could see it. “Did Angel tell you about the other prophecy? The Nyazian scrolls? The one that was a lie? Not just the scrolls but all the commentaries on the scrolls as well. They all confirmed it. They all said the father would kill the son. And it was a lie.”

“Yes, I know.” He’d been told about Sahjahn and his time travelling tricks. Sighing, Giles took the scroll and dutifully began to read it and then shook his head. “Wesley, this is written in several different languages, some of which I don’t recognize. I didn’t do linguistics, remember? I did archaeology.”

“These are the prophecies of Aberjian.” Wesley sat on the bed next to him and pointed to the first line as if that was one at least was easy.

Giles looked at it and turned to Wesley in what he was trying very hard to stop developing into exasperation. “Don’t you have a translation?”

“But I need you to check it for me,” Wesley said as if it were obvious. “And the books.” He pushed a book at Giles. “If Sahjahn could change the commentaries on the Nyazian scrolls then can we trust the books?”

“Is there any evidence that he changed the commentaries? If he changed the original scrolls wouldn’t the time line have adjusted itself?” He thought that might be comforting, that it might in some way preserve the sanctity of the books, but Wesley only looked more anxious.

“So, a demon or Wolfram & Hart would only need to alter the original prophecy and everything else would be falsified?” 

“I’m too tired to deal with this now. Can’t we talk about it in the morning?”

Wesley gave him a begging look. “Couldn’t you just look at this part? It’s in Geshundi.” He said ‘Geshundi’ like another scholar might have said ‘French’ to a student of modern languages.

Giles sighed for a lifetime spent with dead languages that had evidently still not been enough. Hurrian he could read, Geshundi he could not. “Isn’t any of it in…Hebrew? Aramaic? Some form of cuneiform?”

“Akkadian.” Wesley’s eyes lit up. “And this line is proto-Tocharian.”

Giles took the scroll from him and examined the lines to which Wesley pointed. “I don’t have my reference books here but it seems to be talking about something that is neither dead nor living undergoing some kind of transformation as a consequence of many battles.”

“Do you think it’s true? Do you think we can trust the books still?” Wesley lowered his voice to a whisper as if he thought they might overhear him. Giles couldn’t decide if Wesley thought his beloved volumes might be planning a coup d’état or was just concerned about hurting their feelings.

“The effort involved in altering the time line as that demon did must have been colossal. I find it hard to believe that would happen too often.” Giles rubbed his temples, feeling a headache begin to throb and having to remind himself firmly as he did so that Wesley was probably a very traumatized young man right now for whom every allowance should be made.

“Perhaps we could check some of the references together?” Wesley opened one and held it out to Giles. There was something exasperating about the trusting way he did that, as if no one could _not_ be pleased to have an ancient volume shoved at them in the wee small hours so that one might get on with the exciting work of cross-referencing.

“You really were an appalling little swot at the Academy, weren’t you, Wesley?” Giles sighed.

Wesley was too busy picking a book for himself to be listening to Giles. He selected a chapter on the habits of phalangoid demons written in Aramaic and invited Giles to cross-reference from an illuminated manuscript written in a form of bastardised Latin-French.

They were halfway through the passage when Giles was saved by, if not the bell, or indeed the cup of tea he was currently gasping for, but at least by an anxious vampire.

“Giles, are you…?” Angel broke off as he saw Wesley sitting on Giles’s bed in his dressing gown. “Wesley…?” 

Wesley looked up guiltily. “Oh. We were just… I was thinking about…” As Angel came over Wesley tried to shove the scroll in between two books where it would be less obvious.

Watching them, Giles had to admit that he wasn’t seeing bullying vampire with person he had recently tried to kill, more like child caught reading under the covers by a parent who had already told him twice that he couldn’t stay up any later on a school-night.

Angel plucked the scroll from its not very concealing hiding place and held it up in mild accusation. “Wesley…? Did you wake up Giles to talk about the Shanshu prophecy?”

As Wesley gazed up at Angel guiltily, Giles felt as if he were stuck back in his schooldays, covering for some hapless younger boy who was going to dissolve into a puddle of wet tissue paper if a prefect raised his voice to him. “I wasn’t asleep. It really doesn’t matter.”

Angel sighed. “Wes, you need your sleep and I’m sure Giles does too.”

For the first time it seemed to occur to Wesley that he had been perhaps a little less than considerate in knocking on Giles’s door. “I’m sorry. I just couldn’t stop thinking about the Prophecies of Aberjian.”

“Well, who hasn’t had that problem?” Giles observed. “Ancient prophecies being the page turners that they are. Personally, I can never take the suspense. Always have to peek at the last prophecy first – see how it ends.”

His humour was entirely wasted on his current audience. Wesley was trying to read one of the open books upside down, head tilting more and more onto one side. Angel tugged absently at Wesley’s dressing gown to cover his chest and the edge of that healing burn Giles could see, re-belting it as if he’d done it a hundred times before. “Let’s get you back to bed, Wes. Let Giles get some sleep.”

“But…” Wesley gazed at the scroll as if were a favourite Famous Five novel and he would now never know if Julian, George, Anne and Timmy managed to rescue Dick from another bunch of dastardly kidnappers.

Angel gently eased Wesley to his feet while giving Giles a begging look. “Perhaps Giles and Willow would be able to stay for an extra day. Do some cross-referencing with you…?” 

Giles sighed and capitulated. It seemed to be the only way he was likely to get any sleep tonight. “Gladly.”

Wesley lit up. “Oh, thank you. That would be super.”

“Absolutely – super,” Angel echoed, moving Wesley gently but firmly towards the door while apologetically mouthing the word ‘painkillers’ at Giles as he steered Wesley away.

“Oh, my books…” Wesley gazed at them longingly and Angel tightened his grip on them.

“I’m sure they’ll be safe with Giles.”

“But, perhaps I should just…” 

But thankfully, Angel had urged Wesley out of the door and closed the door behind them. 

Sighing, Giles belted his own dressing gown more securely in case of wandering females and went downstairs in search of a cup of a tea. He had feared he might find some of the others down there, but the hotel was thankfully quiet and still. He found some Twinings teabags, made himself a cup of hot strong tea, and then made his way back to bed. Shoving the books onto the floor, he climbed under the covers, closed his eyes and hoped he dreamt of something far removed from Sunnydale or the Hyperion.

 

The next knock on the door was imperious and a great deal less tentative. Giles unwillingly opened his eyes, finding it hard to believe that it was morning already. He still felt washed out and exhausted. Groping for the bedside lamp he switched it on and took a proper look at his watch. Six a.m. Groaning, he got to his feet, pulled on his robe and belted it in exasperation as he crossed to the door.

“Wesley, I really do need more than three hours of sleep before I can tackle ancient cuneiform…” Giles blinked in confusion as he found Cordelia standing outside his door, hands on her hips and a look of grim determination on her face. “Cordelia? Is everything all right?”

“Well, thanks to you coming up here and telling us our lives are a pointless charade, not so much.”

“At no point did I say that your lives were a…”

Cordelia effortlessly overwhelmed him. “I’ve been thinking and I need to go through all our cases. Show them to you. Make you see how much good we’re doing here and if you still think the Powers That Be are the bad guys.”

“I didn’t say the Powers That Be are ‘bad guys’, I just said that you had no actual proof that they were…good guys…” But she had already marched off, evidently expecting him to follow without further delay.

Realizing that any further hope of sleep was now lost, Giles wearily, set about washing, shaving and dressing. 

Willow had been allowed to sleep in until nine am when she had been given breakfast by Fred and a pile of folders to examine by Cordelia. Although, in answer to Angel’s enquiry, Cordelia has insisted that Giles’ and Willow’s participation was entirely voluntary, Giles couldn’t say it had felt that way to him and he doubted it felt that way to Willow either.

Giles spent the morning and half of the afternoon going through files with Cordelia. He had heard several references to her chaotic filing system but, as with her SATs, when she had a point she wanted to make she evidently had a mind like a steel trap. Giles wearily read his way through case after case, the folders spreading out from the office to the lobby and the front desk, until they were covering every available surface and sucking everyone in to reading them. Wesley made notes avidly trying to discern a pattern in the people that the Powers chose to save or not to save, and then decided he wanted to do more research about the Old Ones Giles had mentioned and disappeared into his reference books for four hours straight until Gunn physically tugged him back to the banquette and put food into his hand. 

“One day, Wes, I’m going to get you to grasp that tea isn’t a food group.”

Wesley gave him a look of disbelief. “Don’t be ridiculous. Next you’ll be telling Fred that tacos aren’t a food group.”

He and Gunn grinned at one another and Giles had his first sense of a tangible connection between these two; the realization that Wesley was not a victim of the force of Angel’s sometimes overwhelming personality and tragic history but had forged friendships with every person in the hotel. Something confirmed a moment later when Fred hugged Wesley from behind, resting her cheek against his, her skin looking pale and smooth against his bruises and stubble. “Now, that’s just crazy talk.” She put her head on one side as she looked at his new hair style and then began to try to get it to stick up in strange ways. “Where’s the hair gel?”

“For the last time, Wesley isn’t borrowing any more of my hair gel,” Angel protested. “He doesn’t even care what he looks like.”

“I know. I’ve seen how he dresses. That’s why he needed an intervention.” Cordelia handed a jar of product to Fred.

Angel said to Wesley, “You’ve been an invalid for way too long. Cordy and Fred are getting institutionalised.”

Gunn watched Fred critically as she basically played with Wesley’s hair. Giles personally wouldn’t have stood a moment of it, but Wesley seemed incapable of standing up to either Cordelia or Fred with any conviction. With Cordelia, she just seemed to overwhelm him by superior force of personality, and when there was any interaction with Fred he just got a hopelessly goopy look on his face and let her do anything she liked. Gunn said, “So, if I grew my hair would you be doing that thing with the hair gel to me? Because I’m thinking if so I’m always going to be bald.”

Cordelia looked up in surprise. “I thought you were bald.”

“Through choice,” Gunn protested. “Wes, don’t let them do that to you if you don’t like it.”

“How would you advise me to stop them?” he enquired reasonably.

“It’s my hair style,” Cordelia insisted. “It just happens to be placed on Wesley’s head but it’s my creation and I have a right to maintain it how I like.”

“Well, buy your own hair gel then,” Angel retorted.

“You’ve got about a year’s supply up there. If you had that much blood in the refrigerator this hotel would have to be re-classified as an abattoir.”

“You went into my _room_?”

“So what if I did? What are you hiding up there?”

“Nothing.”

“So, what’s the big deal?”

Giles looked across at Willow who was watching Angel and Cordelia as if they were a tennis match. “Are you missing Sunnydale as much as me?” 

Mentioning Sunnydale was a mistake, Willow at once looking as sad as he felt. He thought of Buffy, still so cut off from the people around her, unable to connect with Dawn or with life, trudging off to her dead end job, trying not to blame the people who had dragged her out of heaven and yet not able to accept that this was her life again, this was her existence, as the Slayer, alive, with a pulse, and in this world. It felt as if she were counting time until she could die again, and yet he knew that in there somewhere was still the vibrant, witty, focused girl he loved as a daughter. Dawn was taking Buffy’s sense of disconnection as a personal rejection, a consequence of her own birth out of nowhere, just a cosmic tricked played upon them all. That was still how she tended to see herself. And Willow was missing Tara like a physical pain. Willow rallied after a moment though and gave him a faint smile.

“I’m looking forward to seeing England.” She looked across at Wesley. “Is it pretty?”

Wesley had clearly never considered his home country in those terms but after a slight pause for readjustment to that idea, he said, “Yes, some of it is very pretty indeed. It’s small which means you’re never too far from the sea. I can never understand how people in this country can live in the middle without dehydrating to death in a few weeks. I really know Hampshire best – the New Forest is beautiful, especially if you can ride. The woods feel as if they’ve always been like this. And Danebury, of course, and Beacon Hill. There are red kites back around Oxford, so I hear. I’d like to see that. They were only in Wales when I left. And there are castles. I find it odd that there aren’t any castles here. I used to find myself looking out for them and wondering if you’d just misplaced them. I know the Normans never came here, of course, but still…it seems so odd. And no hill forts. No standing stones. It will probably seem very crowded to you and with a very poorly designed traffic system. I don’t miss roundabouts – or trying to negotiate the M25. I miss village cricket matches. I miss how quiet they are, and how civilized. And I miss the way the grass smells after the rain.” He became aware that everyone was looking at him and gave a rather embarrassed shrug. “Sorry, I was…distracted. I think I need to get off the painkillers.”

“Do you want to go with Giles?” Angel asked abruptly. “Just for a visit? See…a cricket match? Eat some…marmite.”

Wesley shook his head. “No, Angel. I want to stay here.”

“I could bring you back some marmite,” Willow told him kindly. “And a cricket ball, if you like.”

“Thank you.” He smiled at her. “I’d like that.”

“We could paint a baseball red for you if you like?” Fred offered. 

“Yeah, and put some shoe polish in a jar and tell you it’s marmite,” Gunn added.

“Did the Council ever investigate that claim that the M25 was actually a demonic sigil?” Wesley asked Giles.

“I think they had to declare an open verdict on that, despite all the confirmatory evidence.” Giles saw that Fred was still playing with Wesley’s hair – no doubt she considered it styling, but she just seemed to be squishing her fingers through it to see what that made it do. He had to admit that he had not expected them to be so comfortable with his erstwhile colleague or he with them. Angel had been positively parental when coaxing him back to bed, and Fred and Gunn seemed to treat Wesley like their eccentric older brother; Cordelia like he was her wayward twin. Lorne was gentle with everyone, good natured and indulgent, and it was probably very good for someone like Wesley to be given pet names on such a regular basis by a kind-hearted demon. Groo just appeared to be one of the universe’s natural gentlemen. This was certainly not the scenario Giles had expected to find awaiting him in regard to Wesley when he had contemplated this trip to LA.

Wesley remembered his researching and took the pen from behind his ear, bending back over his notes. Fred did a last few deft squidging motions with her fingers then looked to Cordelia for confirmation she had done it right. Cordelia came over, looked at it critically, and then squished her fingers through it in a way that seemed to undo everything Fred had done completely. However she said, “Yes, Fred, that’s great.”

“Just who are you glamming Wes up for?” Gunn demanded. “Especially when he’s still looking like someone threw him headfirst into the weapons cabinet? Miss Whiplash?”

“I’m practising for when he doesn’t look as if someone threw him into the weapons cabinet,” Cordelia explained.

Wesley looked up from his notes in some alarm. “You can’t make me date.”

“Hey, I’m part demon these days, I can make you do anything.”

“Is that part of the new powers package?”

“Forcing people to go on blind dates? Absolutely. Comes with the glowing and the floating.” She turned to Willow. “So, are Xander and Anya definitely not a couple any more?”

“He’s not dating a vengeance demon.” Angel didn’t even look up from the folder he was reading. “They’re way too flaky. And besides, it’s dangerous.”

“She’s an _ex_ vengeance demon and she co-owns a magic shop that stocks all the very expensive ingredients we use all the time.”

“Don’t we know anyone who owns an axe shop?” Gunn looked up with more interest.

Fred looked thoughtful. “A book shop would be better for Wesley.” 

“Ballet dancer!” Gunn sat up straighter. “They’re always pretty and Wes could get us all free tickets to every performance.”

Giles looked at Gunn in surprise and saw that he did not seem to be mocking ballet in any way. Bemused he turned back to Wesley. “Are you sure you don’t want to accompany Willow and I to England, Wesley?”

“We’re just kidding around,” Fred assured Giles hastily. “We wouldn’t really make Wesley date anyone he didn’t want to just to get free stuff or a discount. Well…” She looked at Cordelia in some apprehension. “Charles and I are just kidding around.”

“I don’t want to date anyone. Angel…?”

“You don’t have to date anyone,” Angel assured him, still reading the folder. “Not even if Cordy tells you that you do.”

Wesley gave Cordelia a smug look that was entirely fraternal. She snorted. “Fine. Be Mister Stay At Home. Just don’t start whining to me about your lonely empty life.”

Fred put her arm through Wesley’s and said conspiratorially, “You can always triple date with me and Charles.”

Gunn and Wesley exchanged an awkward look and Gunn said to Giles: “She’s not really saying what it sounds like she’s saying because we don’t…do that here.”

Fred’s eyes widened. “No! We don’t… We definitely don’t. That would just be…” Then she got a far away look in her eyes and said, “Actually, that would be kind of… just from a mathematical viewpoint … and, of course, the _I Ching_ – trying to calculate the permutations and combinations. It would increase the variability factor by a ratio of…”

“Fred…” Gunn gave her a slightly forced smile. “You could stop talking any time now. And before Wes and I die of manly embarrassment would probably be good.”

Cordelia’s smile to Willow was beaming. “See? Never a dull moment here.”

 

Going through all their files revealed that they had indeed saved a number of lives and that the Powers did seem to be benevolent on the whole although somewhat eccentric in their choice of who was to be saved and who lost. Giles tried to crick his neck back into position as he sat on the floor, looking around at the humans and demons and mixture of the two currently occupying the banquette and the floor in various attitudes that suggested aching limbs and tired eyes. Angel was on the floor with a pile of files next to him, a towering stack of past acts of heroism, innocent victims saved. Giles found it difficult not to try to calculate how high the stack of folders would reach that contained the victims Angelus had killed in the past and was forced to conclude that those Angel had saved still did not even remotely compare in quantity to those that he had murdered.

These ‘Powers’ had warned Cordelia about the Skilosh too late to be of any use to her, but not about Vocah, and, while they had helped Fred out twice, bringing her to Cordelia’s attention five years after her trip to Pylea and again when she was in danger of being decapitated, they had sent Cordelia no warning about Wesley getting blown up, shot, or having his throat slashed. 

“Maybe they don’t like me?” Wesley sighed. “Or maybe I’m just not important enough to save.”

“No, you have a very significant role to play in the…” Lorne broke off and then as everyone looked at him, said, “I can’t… I don’t read and tell.”

“I don’t mind.” Wesley gazed at him curiously. 

“It could be important.” Angel tossed the folder he’d been reading onto the floor. “If Wesley is just another foot soldier in the battle against good and evil then perhaps the Powers aren’t prepared to intervene, but if as Lorne says he has some very important role to play and they’re not helping him…”

“But he didn’t die,” Cordelia pointed out. “Something else intervened. You or Gunn or something that stopped him dying. Maybe the Powers didn’t need to intervene because they knew none of those attacks on Wesley were going to be fatal.”

Lorne inclined his head. “That makes sense, although we are talking ten minutes to final countdown in the case of that last little brush with the reaper.”

Fred looked around at the scattered files and folders. “Maybe they’re just really disorganized. Maybe saving Wesley was sitting on someone’s desk as a memo but they were out sick that day so no one got around to it. Maybe that’s why it took them five years to get me out of Pylea. Not that I’m complaining or anything but you’ve got to wonder how much of a backlog do these people have?”

“I don’t think I’m important.” Wesley frowned in concentration. “But Connor was. He was mentioned in the Nyazian scrolls, and Sahjahn only admitted to changing the part of the prophecy that said Angel would kill Connor rather than that Connor would kill Sahjahn, that means that the confluence of events that led to Connor’s birth, the birth itself – which happened exactly as was foretold – were all significant events, worthy of being the subject of important prophecies. It makes no sense that Connor should have been born and then just be…lost.” He looked across at Angel. “Like you said, you don’t get half a miracle.”

Angel sighed. “I’ve been thinking about that too, Wes, and maybe the truth was that Connor was evil. Maybe in every dimension he was evil and would have brought great evil on the world. Remember what Gunn said – that maybe stopping the baby being born was the Powers finally stepping up to the plate and doing something? Maybe getting rid of Connor was something they had to do for the good of mankind and they made you their instrument. Maybe the important role you played in the apocalypse was when you averted it by helping to remove Connor from this dimension.”

“No, Angel.” Wesley had been sitting on the banquette but he immediately sank down to his knees beside him. “Connor was good. We know he was good. His soul was strong enough to affect Darla to the point where she could feel love.”

Angel looked very weary. “Maybe it was just a means to get born. Maybe you saved the world from…”

“No.” Wesley spun around to look at the anagogic demon. “Lorne, Connor was good, wasn’t he?”

“Sugar, I didn’t actually ‘read’ Connor on account of him not really being up to giving me a chorus at his age.”

“But you’re empathic – you must have sensed that he was good?”

“Yes, I did.” Lorne nodded. “I loved that little baby, Angel, and I never got anything on my psychic radar suggesting he was anything other than…lovable.”

“You can love something that’s evil. Maybe Connor had the ability to make people love him without actually being good.”

“Cordelia…” Wesley gave her a begging look. “Tell Angel.”

She looked stricken. “I don’t know. I was so sure but… Why didn’t the Powers save him? I keep thinking about it. They only needed to send me one lousy vision and none of this needed to happen, so why didn’t they?”

“Well, I know,” Wesley insisted. “Connor was good. He was born for a purpose. He was meant to do good. That’s why he was given to you. That’s why Darla killed herself so that he could live.”

Angel took Wesley by the shoulders and squeezed them gently. “Wes, I’m trying to tell you that you may have saved the world.”

“I didn’t. Connor was good. He had a purpose here. He was supposed to fulfil some destiny that would have made the world a better place.”

“Why do you believe that? So you can beat yourself up some more about what happened?”

“Because he was your son.” Wesley gazed at him as if he could will Angel to believe him just by not breaking eye contact. “And when I held him I knew it was true. He wasn’t your punishment, Angel. He was meant to be your reward. I’m sure of it.”

Angel sighed. “You don’t know it. And neither do I. All we know is that the Powers didn’t save him. And, Wes, what you keep missing is that no one the planet thinks I deserve a reward except you and Cordelia – and – okay – Fred because she’s soft-hearted.”

“You didn’t kill those people. Angelus did. You’re having to carry the burden for his crimes. Why shouldn’t you get a reward?”

“They’re _my_ crimes.”

“No, they’re not. They never were. I told Holtz that but he was as stubborn as…you are. I could sing for Lorne. He could read me and see if the part I was supposed to play in averting the apocalypse had already…” Apparently noticing for the first time that day the painful rasping of his throat, Wesley put a hand up to his scar self-consciously. “Perhaps I could hum?”

“Perhaps it’s better we don’t know.” Gunn looked up. “I don’t want to think that Angel’s son was evil, and I don’t want to think that Wesley robbed the world of the new Messiah or something. Seems to me there’s no answer to that question that isn’t lose-lose for those of us who are left. Whatever Connor was or was meant to do here he’s gone now. We need to move on.”

Cordelia shrugged. “Out of the mouths of bald men with axes…”

“I know this is none of my business,” Giles put in quietly, “but I have to agree with Gunn. Whatever you choose to believe is going to hurt someone in this room. As to your mysterious Powers, I have to say that although their process of inflicting the visions upon their chosen seer seems to me to be arbitrary, arrogant and dangerous, the visions themselves seem to have saved a number of lives. Just be careful.”

“Careful of what?” Cordelia pressed. “You keep making these vague warnings and head shakings and giving me a migraine and making Wesley go all squirrelly over his musty old scrolls again and you’re about as useful as a mouldy fortune cookie about giving us some specifics!”

Giles took a deep breath. “Letting them give you some aspect of a demon – their choice and without any input from you into the matter except for your consent – and a consent obtained it seems to me after the most blatant and manipulative emotional blackmail I’ve ever encountered – is a step further than I would have advised you to take. If they can send you the visions, I find it hard to believe they couldn’t find a way to control the impact they had upon the subject. Instead they created a situation where you were suffering actual neurological damage and told that you could only survive if you gave up the visions, but instead of just taking them away from you before they killed you, they chose to show you a dystopia where Angel was insane and Wesley was maimed, while giving you the illusion of choice in the matter. I’m not denying that your actions were selfless, Cordelia, and indeed heroic, but I’m still concerned that…”

Cordelia clasped her hands to her head and clearly only with great difficulty resisted the urge to rock. “What. Are. You. Saying. And I mean in ten words or less, Giles!”

“They manipulated you into a situation where you agreed to let them ‘demonise’ you.”

Cordelia glared at him. “That’s fourteen words.”

“Just be certain that you being made part demon is really a method to help you bear the burden of the visions rather than the visions being a method by which to get you to consent to being demonised.”

“You think I’m dangerous?” she demanded.

“I think you have no idea what they did to you or why. And I wouldn’t accept the next gift horse they give you without taking a damned good look in its mouth.” Giles looked around at them all. “These visions from the Powers – I know they give you a means to help people and they’re certainly useful, but you could do good without them. You have the resources and the intelligence and the fighting skills to find out where there are dangerous demons at work and do your part in defeating them even if you never get another direct message from the Powers That Be.”

Cordelia sighed and looked across at Fred. “You wouldn’t know it from the tweedy thing he used to have going but Giles actually has a big problem with authority figures. He went _way_ off the rails when he was rebelling.”

Giles rolled his eyes. “Fine. Be like that. Let these mysterious Powers put you in and out of comas and give you horns and a tail, Cordelia. It’s entirely your decision.”

“Watchers rebel?” Fred looked at Wesley in surprise. “I didn’t know that.”

“Neither did I,” Wesley assured her. “The Council omitted to tell me it was an option and I omitted to do it. I think I still have it pencilled in for a later date. Buy milk. Learn jujitsu. Have teenage rebellion.”

Fred giggled at him while Wesley grinned back at her and Giles thought again that there was definitely trouble ahead for those two unless the males in that girl’s life could get sufficiently inebriated to embrace her threesome idea. 

Gunn leant across to press his fist against Wesley’s. “Soon as you’re better again, English, we’ll take you out and do something about that rebelling thing.”

“Oh, can I do my Marlon Brando impression?”

“Not in public. But you can wear your leather jacket as long as you don’t wear the leather pants.”

Cordelia nodded sagely and mouthed: ‘Santa Monica Boulevard’ at Willow.

“Can I go on the back of Wesley’s motorbike?” Fred brightened at the idea. 

“Only if you’re not going to find it more of a turn-on than my truck,” Gunn insisted.

Cordelia looked at Fred sideways. “You find Gunn’s truck sexy?”

“You don’t?” Fred countered innocently.

“No way. Angel’s convertible maybe because at least it has a back seat but… Are you telling me that you and Gunn – in the front seat of his truck…? Because…ewww!”

Angel and Wesley exchanged a look to match Cordelia’s ‘ewww’. “From now on we take my car or your bike,” Angel assured the Englishman.

Giles rose to his feet. “Well, not that this visit hasn’t been very…educational, but I really think Willow and I need to be heading back now.”

Wesley looked up at him reproachfully. “But I thought we were going to research the Old Ones some more?”

“We’ll do that with you, Wesley,” Fred reassured him.

“Oh yeah – let me at those research books,” Gunn groaned.

Giles drew on the last of his patience. “I’ll email you all the references I have to them and we can discuss it over the phone in more detail in a week or so when Willow and I are in England. I’ll see what references I can find at the Council headquarters. Cordelia, I’ll ask for photocopies of all the reference material they have on seers and visionaries as well and send it to Wesley as long with the information on the Old Ones.”

“That would be wonderful.” Wesley brightened considerably, proceeding to give Giles the email address of everyone in the company so there could be no danger of him forgetting to send the information.

Giles was surprised that Wesley took a moment to talk to Willow by herself, taking her hands in his at one point and finishing with her standing on tiptoe to kiss him on the forehead. Then Lorne whisked her to one side and wrapped his arms around her in what looked like a slow waltz to some music he was humming to her. He whispered in her ear urgently and she smiled in relief. Giles heard her say:

“Are you sure?”

“Just get on that plane, sugar. Sometimes a place that used to be good for us, there comes a time when it’s not where we need to be. And you know – Hellmouths, they take a toll, especially on those of us attuned to the astral plane.”

“I feel so bad about leaving Buffy and Dawn and Xander. They’re all so unhappy.”

“And I’m sorry for that, sweetie, but you need to trust me on this, Sunnydale is really not where you need to be right now.”

“What about Tara?” Willow matched her steps to Lorne’s as he continued to dance music that only they seemed able to hear.

“Haven’t read her. Can’t tell you. But I can see happiness for a certain red-headed witch who’s not a million miles away from me right now as long as she gets on that plane with Giles.”

Giles shook Angel gravely by the hand and said again quietly how sorry he was for the loss of his son. Angel nodded. “Thank you. And thank you for your help, Giles. I appreciate you and Willow coming up here.” He glanced over at Wesley. “We’ll take care of him, I promise. Just – don’t tell his father…anything.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Giles assured him. “And I’ll be discreet in all the research I do. I see from your files that Cordelia’s link to the Powers have already made her a target for kidnap once. I’ll be careful not to mention her name to anyone in the Council.”

“Thank you.” Angel looked at him for a moment longer. “You’ll tell Buffy…? Tell her I was thinking of her.”

“I’ll tell her. Cordelia, always a pleasure to see you again. Take care of yourself.” He nodded to Gunn, Fred, Lorne and Groo. “It was…fascinating to meet you all. Thank you so much for the tea, Winifred.”

Fred bounced up a little anxiously. “So, you think Wesley’s okay here with us?”

Giles almost smiled but her eyes were so serious that he restricted himself to a grave nod. “I can think of no place where he would be better off.”

Fred turned around with a beaming smile of triumph to Gunn and Cordelia. Giles wondered if she had still not quite grasped that he didn’t actually have any power to remove Wesley from their care. The report he had received from Lorne when he had heard about what had happened with Connor and Wesley being in the hospital had given him the impression that not only was Wesley persona non grata at the Hyperion, he had become such a non-person that it was not even permitted to mention his name in Angel’s hearing. And these same people who were now clearly so genuinely fond of his ex-colleague had, at the time, seemed to feel that hell would have frozen over before any of them wanted to see him again. Clearly life moved fast in Los Angeles. Thinking of the terrible things that had evidently been done to Wesley in that other dimension he had to sigh inside at the thought that Wesley would probably think even that had been worth it just to be accepted back into the bosom of his adopted family. It was pathetic and borderline tragic, but Giles couldn’t exactly blame him. He did, however, blame Wesley’s father and just hoped he didn’t run into him in the Council library in London or the urge to tell him what he thought of his child-rearing abilities might be impossible to suppress.

“Goodbye, Giles.” He turned to find Wesley proffering a hand.

He shook it warmly. “Goodbye, Wesley. Take care of yourself, won’t you?”

“And you.” Wesley half-smiled. “Sorry about – waking you last night. And – thank you – especially for not giving me the lecture burning a hole in your tongue.”

Giles also smiled. “I’m glad my heroic self-restraint didn’t go unnoticed. I’ll do some research in London and send you what I have. And you might want to think about visiting that coven I mentioned, at some point. It’s a fascinating place. Very restful, and as you evidently couldn’t have cast such a spell without considerable inherent magical ability you might want to work on that some more in the future – in controlled circumstances, of course.”

Wesley smiled at that ‘controlled circumstances’ and nodded. “We don’t get those here either. But, I’ll think about it. Thank you again, Giles. Please give my best wishes to everyone in Sunnydale. I really do appreciate them not actually killing me when I was there, despite grave provocation.”

Giles patted him very gently on the shoulder and made to pick up Willow’s bag but Gunn was already holding it up. “I got it.” Willow disentangled herself from hugs with Cordelia and Fred, then Angel and Lorne, and finally it was time to go.

Gunn held open the doors for them and walked them to the Giles’s car. “Wes better or worse than you were expecting?” he asked quietly.

“A great deal better,” Giles reassured him. “Bruises heal. Being cast out by all the people who love you…a very different kettle of fish. I didn’t expect him to have been taken back by you all so…wholeheartedly.”

“Probably wouldn’t have happened so fast if he hadn’t pulled that dumb stunt with the spell but as he did…” Gunn shrugged. “There ain’t anyone left here who doesn’t think he paid way more than enough for what he did. Anyway, we’re all screw-ups here. Or crazy. Or both. All got our mistakes to atone for. That’s why we do what we do. Let’s face it – would anyone sane live like this?”

Giles thought about his own life for the past few years, then inclined his head in acknowledgement. “Absolutely. Nothing odd about it at all. Take care, Gunn. I’ll be in touch. Perhaps you could persuade Wesley not to mix his painkillers with whatever it is he’s mixing them with, and…” He didn’t know how to warn him about the possible problem that might lie ahead of them if Fred’s subconscious feelings for Wesley became known to her or to Gunn. “Forgive him any other stupid things he may do.”

Gunn shrugged. “Saved him from bleeding to death twice. Can’t do that and not feel like cutting a guy a little slack.”

“Here.” Giles turned to find Cordelia proffering a fan of business cards. “You can hand them out to people if you hear of any work we can do. I’ll send you one of Wesley’s as soon as…”

Giles held up the one of Wesley’s that he and Willow had found on the floor of the basement. “You must have dropped a couple when throwing them into the incinerator, Cordelia.”

She acknowledged it with a grimace. “Okay, you got me.” She met Giles’s gaze for a moment and then said, “I’m only going to say this once, but I’ll think about what you said about the Powers. You’re probably wrong – being a Watcher and a librarian and all, not to mention – British, but there’s just a slight chance you may be right so I’ll – think about it.”

He nodded. “That’s all I want you to do, Cordelia.”

“I’m grateful to you for taking an interest.” She gritted her teeth. “But tell anyone I said that and I’ll tell the world you and Ethan Rayne used to do the nasty in the back of your Reliant Robin.”

Giles recoiled in horror. “I have _never_ owned, driven or so much as been a passenger in a Reliant Robin. A brief flirtation with a Morris Traveller, perhaps, but, really, even I have some standards.”

“Well, don’t think I wouldn’t do it. I have a rep to maintain.” She turned to kiss Willow again, saying quietly, “I hope it works out for you with the mojo controlling thing but if it doesn’t you’ll just have to move in here with us, okay? We’ll take anyone.”

“That’s actually…comforting,” Willow admitted.

“Email me from London,” Cordelia told her firmly. “Let me know you got there okay. And don’t forget to mention the weather. I’ve bet Wesley ten bucks it will be raining as the plane touches down.”

Giles got into the car, switched on the ignition and looked past Gunn to see Angel standing in the shadows watching him, looking noble and subtly tragic, but his arm was around Wesley, steadying him, Fred had her hand on Wesley’s other arm, standing on tip toe to give them a last beaming smile, and the green horned demon was waving to them, red eyes kind as they looked at Willow, the other Pylean, Groo, nodding to them with a gesture of respect from one warrior to another. 

When he had walked into the lobby of the Hyperion, Giles thought he had never seen a more unlikely group of misfits, but now they just looked like a…family. A family of which Wesley seemed to be a valuable member.

“He’ll be fine.” Gunn bent down to speak to Giles through the open window. 

“Yes.” Giles nodded to them all one last time before he pulled out into the traffic. “I really think he will.”

***

_A month later…_

The air felt thick with anticipation. Wesley had noticed it when they came back from destroying that nest of Raptoran demons which had been feeding off the homeless. A low hum in the atmosphere that had made Lorne flinch and clutch his horns and Groo observe that if this were Pylea he would expect there to be slarkanik lighting the sky very soon. Fred had explained what a thunderstorm actually was and how lightning was formed until Gunn’s eyes had started to glaze over, and he and Angel had barely troubled to hide their relief when a phone call from some of Gunn’s old crew meant they had to pick up their swords, axes, and crossbows and go straight back out again. 

Although Wesley was now fully recovered (from his perspective) or still convalescent (everyone else’s perspective), Angel had insisted that he should sit this next battle out, as they needed to know if there was likely to be a colony of Raptorans in the area or if that one nest was the sum total of those particularly nasty demons currently terrorising LA. 

“You hit the books, English.” Gunn patted him on the shoulder gently – Gunn not yet having got out of the habit first formed when Wesley had been shot in front of him of handling him as if he were made of cracked porcelain. “We’ll hit the vamps.”

“I wish you’d stop treating me like an invalid,” Wesley protested.

Angel had also patted him – very gently – on the shoulder. “We’re not, Wes, we’re just treating you like the resident researcher, so go – research.”

He had researched Raptorans until he could have delivered a paper on them, and learned that, amongst other very unpleasant things, they were viciously territorial, making it unlikely that there was another nest in the vicinity. Fred had gone out to buy food with Cordelia, and Lorne and Groo were reminiscing upstairs about the good old days of Pylea, which seemed to involve Lorne playing Groo most of his Aretha Franklin collection, presumably to point out all the ways in which this world was better than the one they’d left. Having personally spent most of his time on Pylea being chained up, starved, threatened with execution or having to make one soul-stripping decision after another, Wesley agreed with Lorne all the way. He was glad that they had done their bit to try to make Pylea a more equal and tolerant place but equally glad that they would never ever have to go back there.

The air crackled and Wesley felt all the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. The atmosphere was electrified; sizzling with a surface tension that brought him to his feet as if he were being pulled by invisible strings. With his heart pounding automatically in response he had to remind himself that not only was the tear between his dimension and that other one sealed closed but that the Angelus and Gunn from that world were dead and dusted and could never hurt anyone in this world or any other ever again.

The nightmares were still visiting him; waking in the darkness, gasping for breath from a panic attack as he felt hands holding him down, struggling against bonds that only dug deeper into his flesh; waking to a tangle of sweat-soaked sheets and a heart pounding as if it were trying to escape his chest. He had to make a conscience effort not to pacify Angel or Gunn if their mood turned dark. The first time they’d argued after he’d come back from that other world; both of them made short-tempered by stinging wounds from a fight they’d almost lost, he’d been inwardly cringing. As Gunn had turned to demand Wesley’s opinion on the best way to tackle the demons they’d just had so much trouble killing, Wesley had been unable to stop a flinch. That had at least ended the argument but the look in Gunn and Angel’s eyes as Wesley ducked away from Gunn’s hand had felt more painful than the backhand his subconscious had been expecting.

“I’m sorry…” he’d breathed; seared by their expression of shocked hurt.

“No, man, I’m sorry.” Gunn had crouched down next to him, as if he were someone who had to be approached cautiously now, like a wounded animal. “I’m not him.”

“I know. I _know_. It was just… I’m sorry.” 

After that Angel and Gunn had tip-toed around him for three days, and been so self-consciously polite and equable to one another it was almost funny. Almost.

Left to his own devices he would have taken refuge from the nightmares in insomnia and whisky – his stand-bys of the past. But Fred had decided that the best cure for trouble sleeping was to help her with her paper on P-Dimensional Subspace; a subject he understood only very imperfectly – even after her long and quite confusing explanations – and which did indeed leave him completely exhausted and Fred beaming triumphantly as he slumped into unconsciousness. 

“And people say astrophysics is all just theory and no practical use…” he had heard her murmur as she kissed his forehead goodnight. Even knowing that she loved another man and saw him as a brother did not undermine his pleasure in the realization that even if he had not won her heart he had genuinely regained her friendship.

Cordelia had insisted that what he needed to help him relax was a massage; something that had felt so good that Angel had come in to find out what on earth Cordy was doing to Wesley to make him sound like _that_. He had indeed fallen into a deep and dreamless rest afterwards that had carried him through until morning. Lorne had mixed him a potion, which he said would help with the nightmares, and Groo had diffidently suggested that he taught him a Pylean technique of meditation that would lower his heart rate and relax his tension. Gunn had insisted that the best cure for nightmares was to play a lot of Risk before sleeping and they had tried that out for several nights running. The methods hadn’t always worked – the nightmares had still come, although with less and less frequency as the days wore on – but the intent behind them and the kindness shown to him by the others, those had proven armour enough that even when he woke up, sweat-soaked and shaking, it took him a shorter and shorter amount of time of deep breathing and Pylean mantra intoning before he could go back to sleep.

Angel was the one who had come into his room after a particularly bad nightmare and sat on his bed for a while before saying: “What happened to you in that place – that’s not the kind of thing one just gets over in a week or a month or even a year. It’s going to stay with you. It’s going to come back when you don’t expect it and when you thought it was in the past now. The point is that it’s okay to not be over it. It’s okay to wake up screaming sometimes. The only person who expects you to just carry on as if nothing happened – is you.”

“I just want to put it behind me.” Wesley had known that Angel would be able to hear his heartbeat, and how he was still jangling like a wind-chime in a hurricane at Angel being this close to him when it was only a few minutes since he had felt Angelus pinning him to the floor.

“You will.” Angel had touched him lightly on the shoulder. “Just not…straight away.”

“They’re both dust, it’s not as if they can…”

“Yeah and the subconscious mind is full of reasoned arguments like that at four in the morning. Give it time, Wes. And I’m next door if you want someone to talk to. Trust me, after a century and a half of murder and mayhem and another century in a hell dimension, I know all about nightmares.”

He had tentatively suggested that perhaps he should move back to his own flat but had been overruled so strongly by everyone present that he hadn’t like to bring it up again. It wasn’t clear if him returning to his own home was a problem because he would at once lapse into magic-dabbling depressive patterns of behaviour or because Cordelia and Fred liked having someone to fuss over and try out their cooking on who was too polite to refuse. 

Giles was emailing him quite regularly from England, putting in little warnings here and there about Wesley allowing himself to become a ‘second-class citizen’ of _Angel Investigations_. ‘Make sure they don’t start treating you like an indentured slave’ the man had cautioned in his last email. Angel had read it over his shoulder and snorted.

“Wesley’s my faithful servant, Giles. I’m allowed to treat him like an indentured slave.” Seeing Wesley’s expression, Angel had rolled his eyes. “Joke, Wes.” His frown had followed quickly. “We don’t treat you like that, do we? Cause I remember Giles always expecting everyone to just drop everything and pick up the research books just because he said so – and not big on the ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ as I recall, but we don’t do that…do we?”

Wesley had been saved from answering by Cordelia striding into the office, saying: “Hit the books, Wes. Big, really big, two-headed, kind of gnarly-looking. Carries an axe with a symbol on it like this.” As she turned his hand over and drew the symbol on his palm with a felt-tip pen, she became aware of Wesley and Angel’s expressions and looked at them in confusion. “What? Were you having a coffee break or something? Did I mention that this demon was _big_ …?” He and Angel had immediately started researching while Cordelia yelled for Gunn and Fred to come and help, and the conversation had – thankfully – been terminated.

Another crackle rippled through the Hyperion. It really did feel as if the hotel was under a cloud bank with an electrical storm building static from every stone. He marked the place in the book he was reading, checked that he was still wearing the wrist strapping which held that discreet but extremely sharp stake, slipped a knife into his other sleeve, and walked out into the lobby.

There were still the faint markings of the pentagram on the floor, a blood-coloured reminder of Angel’s loss. Wesley never looked at it without thinking of Connor and how desperately Angel had tried to get him back. Even now he still felt as if there was nothing he wouldn’t do to give Angel back his son, but there was nothing to be done. Angel had made him give him his word that he would never try to alter time or events with magic again, and there was no other method by which a dead baby could be brought back to life. 

Wesley was walking towards the pentagram when the air crackled again, a sizzle that made him flinch and duck, luckily as it turned out, as that was the only thing that saved him when the grey-scaled hell beast fell out of a tear in the air twenty feet above the floor and landed already flailing its dagger-sharp tail. The tail passed over Wesley’s head by a whisker, and he stumbled backwards in disbelief. The creature turned and snarled at him, drool shining on its long thin fangs. As it lunged at him, something fell from the rip in the air above them, a solid bundle, the size of a small canoe, but wrapped entirely in stitched skins, which made the beast hesitate for a moment, before it recovered its balance and then lunged forward a second time. As it did so a human figure fell out of the same crackle of blood-stained light and landed, perfectly balanced on the soles of his feet, slicing off the creature’s head with one swish of his sword arm.

Wesley gazed up at him in disbelief. A teenage boy; slender, handsome, blue-eyed, clad in animal skins and with unkempt hair but evidently not yet old enough to need to shave. He felt instinctively that there had probably never been anything so dangerous in the hotel. Something confirmed as the boy lunged forward, grabbed him by the throat and yanked him back against him, hissing, “Is he here?”

He found himself gazing at the head of the beast whose eyes were fixed on them in death, its severed neck still leaking greenish gore onto the tiled floor. Behind him he could almost hear the rapid pounding of the boy’s heart, and could certainly feel the strength of the fingers around his neck. It reminded him of when Angel had grabbed him in their first offices – the same sensation of being held by a hungry prey animal, being entirely at its mercy. “Who?” he asked with difficulty.

“The vampire.”

“Angel?” Wesley twisted around to try to see the boy’s face again, and felt the knife sting his neck, blood begin to trickle. “You’re looking for Angel?”

The boy sniffed Wesley, adding to the feeling he was being held by an animal, then murmured in some confusion, “I know your scent. I remember your scent.” He tightened his grip. “You’re human.”

Wesley swallowed. “Yes.”

“But you serve him? You belong to him?”

“I work with him.” 

“Do you fear him?”

“No.” Wesley managed to get another look at the boy and although his eyes were blue there was something in them that was very familiar. The boy smelt of blood and sweat and anger and there was a light that looked very close to insanity in his eyes; and then Wesley realized it was grief, the red rims to the eyes, the shadows beneath them; a grief so overpowering that it became a kind of madness. Then he knew. “You’re him. You’re Connor.”

The grip tightened to the point where breathing became impossible. “Don’t call me that. That was his name for me.”

Wesley thought he might pass out, but not from the constriction of his windpipe, his heart began to pound, not just in his chest, the pulse of it audible throughout his whole body, in his veins, in his brain. It hurt too much to bear. He couldn’t stand this terrible shard of hope, so agonizingly intense. He closed his eyes.

Connor shook him, releasing the grip on his throat a fraction. “Why aren’t you fighting?”

Wesley opened his eyes. “What?”

“You have a knife. I can smell the metal. Why don’t you use it?”

Wesley gazed up at him, drinking him in. He remembered the baby so clearly but he couldn’t have been certain from his appearance that this was that baby grown up, he just knew it. Every cell in his body knew it. “Because you’re his son.”

“No.” Connor abruptly pushed him away and Wesley slammed onto the floor, sliding along it. “This is the only father I’ve ever needed.”

Wesley realized he was lying next to the canoe-shaped bundle stitched into those uncured animal skins; except it was corpse-shaped and the skins were cured, it was what within them that was smelling like that. He snatched a breath. “Holtz?”

“My father.” Connor was a bleak portrait of misery and rage as he gazed at the stitched bundle. 

Wesley sat up cautiously. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Connor sprang at him and grabbed him by the hair, yanking his head back and holding the blade to his neck once more. “Don’t lie to me. He was your enemy. Enemy of the one you serve.”

“I’m still sorry for your loss. He kept you alive.” His head was still reeling from it. “Holtz kept you alive in Quor’toth.”

Connor pulled his head back even further so Wesley had no option but to look into his eyes. He ran the blade along the scar at Wesley’s neck. “Who did this?”

Gazing at him, Wesley realized he didn’t care if he lived or died, not because he had nothing left to live for but because although he could never give this boy back his childhood or give Angel back his first steps or his first words, he could at least die knowing that Angel still had a living son after all. “The woman who took you from me to give you to Holtz.”

Connor bent his head and licked the scar curiously. There was nothing salacious about it, this time, nothing like Angelus working his tongue between the tender edges of the wound to suck the blood from it, so corrupted and so cruel; it was more like being examined by something wild. Something pure. Wesley closed his eyes and Connor licked the wound again and then sniffed him closely. “Is that why I know your scent?”

“I used to hold you. We all did. Cordelia used to feed you. Lorne used to sing you lullabies. I…I never held you very well.”

Connor’s fingers were still tight in his hair. “Use the knife.”

“No.” Wesley let it slip down his sleeve and tossed it away, sliding it across the floor until it hit the stairs with a dull ring.

Connor yanked his head back again and Wesley gazed into his eyes. They were like Darla’s, clear and blue, but the grief in them, that was all Angel. He had never seen anything as beautiful in his life. He was a condemned man’s last sunset, last sunrise, rain after a ten year drought, the first light after an eternity in darkness. 

“Why do you look at me like that?” Connor demanded angrily.

Wesley could feel the hysteria bubbling in his chest. He couldn’t help smiling, that silly grin that would probably get him killed. “You’re Connor. You’re alive.” The laughter couldn’t be repressed, a spasm through his body. “You’re alive.”

Connor frowned at him. “Are you insane? Is that why you serve a demon?”

“Angel has a soul. I work for him because he does good.” He kept drinking him in. Angel’s son. Connor. Not dead. Not dead because of him. Alive because of Holtz. Back from Quor’toth. He couldn’t stop the laughter bubbling up again. “It’s true then. You don’t get half a miracle. Life really is funny and beautiful, after all.”

“If you serve a demon you’re no better than a demon yourself,” Connor told him fiercely. “I should kill you.”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Wesley admitted.

“Then fight me!” Connor grabbed Wesley’s wrist and yanked back the sleeve to reveal the stake in its strapping. “Why do you carry this if you serve a vampire?”

“We also kill vampires – and demons. We just don’t kill good demons or vampires with a soul – like your father.”

“Don’t call him that!”

“Why are you here, Connor?” Wesley asked him gently. 

“Don’t call me that!”

Wesley took the vicious jolting from Connor’s angry shake without a protest. He honestly didn’t care. Connor could bounce him off the walls if he wanted to as long as he stayed alive and in one piece. “I don’t know what else to call you. I don’t know what Holtz named you. I only know what Angel named you, when he lured everyone away so we could take you to the hospital and get you checked up. When Gunn bought you a pushchair. Do you remember any of it? The lullabies Lorne used to sing to you? A normal child wouldn’t be able to, of course, but you were always special.”

“You’re nothing more than a dream.” Connor looked around the hotel as if he feared it was a trap. “All of you are just a dream I once had.” But when he inhaled Wesley’s scent again, it was with a hint of longing. “And I’m not special. I’m cursed.”

“You’re a miracle.” Wesley was still drinking him in. “That’s how you survived. That’s how you came back. Those creatures that attacked Fred, they were running away from you, weren’t they? Like that beast there…” He nodded at the headless corpse still oozing green blood onto the floor. “Because you’re like Angel. You kill monsters and demons to protect those who can’t defend themselves.”

Connor slammed him down onto the floor and knelt on him, putting the tip of his blade to his throat. “You can defend yourself, demon-lover. Now, do it, or I’ll slit you open and let you bleed.”

“Been there, done that,” Wesley told him hoarsely. “Do you want to die because of your grief? Because Holtz is dead? Or did you come here to look for your father? To find the family you lost?”

“He’s not my father.” Connor pushed the blade under Wesley’s jaw. “You’re not my family.”

“Wesley!” 

He had closed his eyes as the blade began to cut into his skin, but now he opened them to see Angel and Gunn coming into the lobby, weapons raised. “It’s Connor!” he shouted. “Angel, it’s Connor.”

He saw Angel stagger, looking as if someone had just run a blade straight through him, and Wesley recognized it so well, that agonizing shiver of hope, but then he took another step. “Stop doing that to Wesley.”

“He could stop me himself,” Connor hissed angrily. “But he won’t do it.” He glared into Wesley’s eyes. “Kill me or I’ll cut your head off.”

“Then you’ll have to cut my head off.” Wesley felt curiously calm. Connor was as unpredictable as a wolf with its paw in a gin trap. The boy crackled with the same intensity as the hell dimension from which he had escaped. He suspected he was steeped in it; drenched in the darkness of that dark world; but inside him he knew there was the core of something good and perfect and pure – like the soul inside Angel that was his true heart, buried in him so deeply even the demon couldn’t touch it.

“Why don’t you do it?” Connor slammed his head down onto the floor.

“Because you’re Angel’s son.” Wesley kept gazing up at him. “And you’re here because you want back the family you lost. The family I stole you from.”

“I’m here to bury my father,” Connor hissed. 

“You could have buried him on Quor’toth. You’re here because Angel’s here.”

“I’m here to kill him.”

“No.” Wesley still felt calm despite the blood trickling down his throat. “You’re not a killer.”

“Connor…” Angel was approaching cautiously. “Wesley’s human. Like Holtz. Like you.” Connor spun around and fired a stake at Angel who knocked it out of the way on reflex. As Gunn ran forward with his axe, raised, Angel grabbed him by the shoulder. “He’s my son.”

“Then tell him to get the hell away from Wesley.”

Wesley had to repress another giggle that was trying to bubble up as he looked up at Angel. “He’s alive, Angel. Connor’s alive.”

“Let’s try to keep everyone like that.” Angel stepped forward cautiously. “Connor, you don’t want to do this.”

“You have no idea what I want!” the boy shouted angrily.

“You want to lay Holtz to rest somewhere where it’s green and quiet.”

That knocked the breath out of the boy more effectively than a punch. He gasped and then slowly got to his feet, still standing over Wesley who made no move to get up. Connor looked at Angel with extraordinary dignity. “He wanted to be burned, so his ashes could find their way back to England.”

“We can do that for him.” Angel was still approaching cautiously, despite Gunn trying to pull him back.

“I will kill you,” Connor warned him. “Your slave is right. I kill demons like you.”

“He’s not my slave, he’s my friend.” Angel held up his hands. “And he’s human, Connor, so let him go.”

Connor abruptly sank down to sit astride his captive and held the knife to Wesley’s scar. “Will you kill me if I slash his throat?”

“No.” Wesley gazed up at him. “No one here will kill you, whatever you do.”

“Speak for yourself,” Gunn said between his teeth.

Connor bent and inhaled Wesley’s scent again and Wesley saw the tears glint briefly in the boy’s eyes. “You sound like him but you don’t smell like him. You smell like my dreams.” He licked the blood from Wesley’s neck carefully. “You taste of salt and sorrow. Is that what he does? The one you call my father? Does he drink from you?”

“No.” Wesley gazed up at him unblinkingly. “He drinks pigs’ blood. He never drinks from us.”

Connor yanked up Wesley’s sleeve. “You’re lying. I can see his teethmarks on you.”

“Not his. Another vampire. Who did drink from me.”

Connor gazed intently into Wesley’s eyes. “How did it feel? When the beast was drinking from you?”

“Quiet. Cold. There was less pain than I expected but it felt as if the tide was going out for the last time. I always thought I could hear the sea but I think it was just the way my heartbeat sounded in my ears as it slowed. Afterwards, my veins ached for days. It hurt when they bit me twice in the same place but the first time, I hardly felt it.”

“Connor…” Angel advanced another cautious pace.

Connor glanced up at the vampire. “I’ll kill him if you try to touch me.” As that froze Angel and Gunn in their tracks he glared at Wesley. “Why don’t you try to fight?”

“I’ve hurt you enough for one lifetime.” Wesley still felt curiously calm. It wasn’t unpleasant, really. He was comfortable enough on his back to warrant a very dirty joke if he couldn’t keep the hysteria bubbling up again, and Connor wasn’t heavy, and, for all his threats to kill him, he was sitting on him quite considerately. It certainly didn’t hurt the way it had when Faith had slammed her wiry dangerous body down onto his lap in a way that had bruised his testicles for a week.

“When did you hurt me?” Connor demanded.

Wesley looked into his eyes. “When I stole you from the father who loved you and let Justine take you from me and give you to Holtz.”

“You want to die,” the boy hissed.

“No. I just hate the way lies taste on my tongue.”

“Wes…” Angel grimaced.

“What’s all the hub-bub about, my demon-killing munchkins? Did you – oh holy hostage situation, Batman… Who’s Stig of the Dump and what’s his beef with Wesley?”

Wesley looked up curiously to see Lorne and Groo standing at the foot of the stairs. That was good. That would mean if Connor made a dash for it, Groo might be able to at least delay him getting through the doors to the garden.

“We brought tacos and fish sticks and Dodger dogs. Cordelia said you’d never be able to finish it all but I know how you all get when you’ve been killing demons and… Why is that boy sitting on top of Wesley?”

Wesley turned his head the other way to see Fred and Cordelia coming in the front door, their hands full of bags of food. Connor sniffed the air, looking nervously from the women to Groo and Lorne. His eyes narrowed as he focused on Lorne. “Filthy demon.”

“Hey…” Lorne looked affronted. “That’s rich coming from Jungle Boy, stranger to soap and water, to someone who’s just flossed for the second time today.”

Wesley felt another giggle in danger of bubbling up. He gestured vaguely with his fingers. “Connor meet Lorne and Groo. Cordelia and Fred meet Connor. He’s just dropped in from Quor’toth for afternoon tea.”

“Keep it together, Wes,” Angel warned.

“Connor…?” Cordelia ran forward, dropping the food heedlessly. Wesley saw the boy’s head snap round as he caught the scent of it.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

Connor slammed him down onto the floor again. “I will kill you.”

“Take it easy, Junior,” Gunn said shortly. “No one here is doing you any harm, least of all Wes. ‘Cept if you stick that knife in him again in which case we may have to rethink that ‘no hurting Angel’s long lost kid’ policy.”

“But he’s…” Fred stumbled as she came forward. “Connor was a baby. He can’t be Connor. He’s…not a baby.”

“Time passes differently in some hell dimensions,” Wesley explained, still feeling oddly comfortable on the floor with Connor’s bony knees digging into his ribcage. “For instance when Angel was sent to hell for what was a hundred years in that dimension it was only a matter of months in Sunnydale. In Quor’toth time evidently moved at a much faster rate than here.”

“Don’t you ever stop talking?” Connor demanded, holding the knife to his throat again. “I could cut out your tongue.”

“Don’t do that,” Angel said hastily. “Connor, please let Wesley go. He’s not a demon and…”

“But I am.” Cordelia stepped forward, voice calm. “Part demon anyway. So is Groo. And Lorne’s all demon. Wesley, Fred and Gunn are human, and Angel’s a vampire. But it doesn’t matter if someone is a demon or human, it just matters what they do, what they are. And we’re all good here. All of us.”

“Do you know what I am?” Connor demanded angrily. “I’m the son of two demons. That makes me a monster.”

“No, Connor,” said Cordelia gently. “It makes you a miracle. It also makes you anything you want to be. Just like the rest of us. The only ones who don’t have a choice are those who don’t have a soul. And you do.”

Connor sprang at her so fast that no one could react in time; knife already plunging towards her heart when Cordelia caught his wrist and held it, the blade a fraction from her skin. For a moment they struggled and then Cordelia began to glow, a light enveloping her and gradually engulfing Connor as well.

Angel had sprung forward to help her but as the light flared, he was held back. Wesley felt strong hands grab him under the arms and pull him to his feet; holding him up as he swayed. He knew vaguely that it was Gunn holding him and he was safe, but he was too distracted to give either of those ideas his full attention. He flinched as the light from Cordelia became dazzling and saw everyone else ducking his or her head. And then the light faded and the knife fell to the floor with a clatter and then somehow Connor was in Cordelia’s arms sobbing, and she was rocking him gently, stroking his hair and telling him that everything was okay now, it really was.

“It’s okay, sweetie,” she whispered to him soothingly. “Let it all go. All that world. You don’t need it any more. You’re home now, Connor. You’re finally back where you’re supposed to be.” She looked over his head at Wesley and smiled at him and then at Angel who looked pretty close to tears of relief himself. “Back home with us.”

***

They burned Holtz’s body in a quiet clearing on soft grass and beneath tall trees, the sound of water close by. His ashes rose and scattered, flickering like fireflies as they glowed and then were whisked away by the heated air. Connor wept, the tears on his skin glittering in the firelight. Wesley bowed his head respectfully, and inwardly felt only relief that Holtz was dead. He liked to believe that the man had found redemption through Connor; in being given back the son of his enemy to replace the one that Angelus had murdered found that there was something greater than vengeance, but he didn’t trust what Holtz had become. The man had walked into Caritas, seen for himself that there were four humans in the place he was about to torch, two of them unarmed women, and done it anyway. Had he accompanied Connor back to this world as a living man instead of a corpse, Wesley suspected he would have found a way to do Angel more harm somehow. But as things were his death had afforded Connor the excuse to punch his way back into his home dimension, to visit the father he claimed to deny. Wesley knew Angel was the real reason Connor was here, and he knew that if Connor spent time with him he would come to see his nobility and goodness. 

Thinking of Holtz’s ashes trying to find their way back to England and the overgrown graves of his wife and children had made Wesley think of it too, that green and pleasant land to which he had no desire to return. Tara had gone with Willow and Giles and apparently the two witches were making great progress at the coven Giles had recommended, Willow learning to control her power so that she was in charge of the magic within her and not the other way around. In their absence, Buffy had been shot by a gunman who had apparently attended High School with her. He had been arrested but Buffy had undergone six hours of surgery before she had been saved. Xander and Dawn had sat out those lonely hours clinging to each other in the waiting room.

“Been there, done that…” Gunn and Cordelia had exchanged a glance before looking across at Wesley.

The gunman was being charged with the murder of an ex-girlfriend and the attempted murder of Buffy. Two of his friends were currently being held on charges of conspiracy to commit murder but seemed likely to get suspended sentences. 

Her close brush with death seemed to have given Buffy back the vital spark Giles had so missed seeing in her. It had made her decide that she did want to live after all, and the world was a far more beautiful place than she remembered it being. Giles, Willow and Tara were going to fly back to Sunnydale for a reappraisal of their lives, and there was talk of leaving the Hellmouth to its own devices for a while, perhaps even taking a group holiday. Buffy had spoken to Angel on the phone for the first time in a long time and sounded ‘connected’ as he put it, stronger, more vivid, not that exhausted wraith Giles had described. He had told her about Connor and she had said she’d like to meet him, like to visit all of them, just not yet quite yet. In a few months perhaps. It was the first time in a very long time that Wesley had seen Angel put the phone down after a conversation with Buffy and smile.

For the moment Connor was being cared for equally by all of them. Angel was afraid of pushing himself on the boy, trying to make him acknowledge a relationship he was sure Connor disliked, and so hung back, giving Connor soulful looks from the across the lobby and beaming like an overgrown schoolboy every time Connor grudgingly admitted that he wouldn’t mind another training session.

Fred had taken it upon herself to introduce him to all the different foods Los Angeles had to offer. Cordelia had taken charge of buying him some clothes, and Gunn and Groo helped him with his weapons training. Wesley had been excused training with Connor on the grounds that he was still recovering, but, although he had strongly refuted that he was not back to normal fitness, after seeing the way Connor threw Gunn and Groo around he had decided there were worse things than convalescence. Angel had been forced to take over the training sessions, as the humans were just getting too badly bruised, and had come up with a scenario where the others took it in turns to be play vampires and vulnerable humans, so that Connor could not just attack everything in sight but had to learn how to switch from protective to offensive within seconds. Wesley had been delighted to see Angel and Connor fighting together as he knew from past sessions with Gunn that, whatever gulf of differences appeared to exist between you, once thrown into a combat situation a few times – or even a simulated combat situation – you simply became allies. The man whose culture you didn’t understand metamorphosing into the man who had your back when that last vampire attacked.

Connor had also learned that humans were far more breakable and bruiseable than he was, and was now taking care to pull his punches; he had also been completely thrown by the concept that vampires could be women, despite having known it intellectually. When Cordelia or Fred played the vampires his natural chivalry put them at a serious advantage, and it had taken him a while to overcome that. As Wesley had pointed out to Angel there were worse faults a boy of his age could have, but they decided that Buffy really did need to come and pay a visit so he could find out all about females of the species occasionally being a great deal deadlier than the male.

Connor regarded Lorne with deep hostility until the day he heard Lorne humming the lullaby he had used to sing to him. He charged into the green demon’s room to find Lorne packing his suitcases while looking sadly at a teddy bear, the discovery of which had sparked the lullaby.

“Sing that again,” Connor demanded breathlessly.

Lorne looked at him in surprise. “What do you want?”

“Please – sing it again, that music you were singing before. Please…”

It was certainly the first time Connor had said ‘please’ to Lorne, or anything that wasn’t prefaced by a muttered ‘filthy demon’. Lorne did as he asked and Connor sank onto his bed, taking the teddy bear from him and gazing at it fixedly. “That music was in my dream.”

“Not a dream, hellspawn, just your super-charged memory going back a little further than most of us can manage. I used to sing you to sleep with it.”

Connor gazed up at Lorne with something that was almost apology in his eyes. “The demons on Quor’toth – they don’t sing lullabies.” He noticed the suitcase. “You’re leaving? Why?”

“Well, one guess why, Junior demon killer who calls me ‘filthy demon’ every time he sees me. I don’t want a stake in the back. Quite apart from the imminent death part, I can never get blood out of silk.”

Connor began to unpack the suitcase. “No. You’re one of the pieces of the puzzle in my mind. You’re the music that I used to hear. I used to look for it. I thought it was playing on Quor’toth. It took me many years to realize it was only a memory.”

“Oh, I know how that feels.” Lorne opened his mouth to protest about the forced unpacking and then shrugged. “Music in your mind when you don’t know where it comes from? There wasn’t any music on Pylea either. That’s why I came here. There shouldn’t be any worlds without music.”

Connor looked up at him in surprise. “I suppose that’s why I came here too. To look for the music in my mind.”

Lorne shrugged. “And it turns out all the time it was filthy demon music, after all.”

“It made me feel safe.” Connor looked at the teddy bear again. “Whenever I heard the music in my memory, I knew that I was safe.”

Lorne took a deep breath and then decided to be as big a demon as he was. “You ever heard Aretha, sugarplum? Because, I’m thinking until you have, your life hasn’t really started…”

So, Lorne had stayed and become Connor’s official guide to all things musical in his new world. Wesley had suggested perhaps letting him follow the score of Benjamin Britten’s ‘The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra’ while it was playing so he could see for himself how the notes represented the sounds made by the different instruments but everyone had looked at him as if he were slightly insane. Lorne had countered by suggesting that they dusted off the piano in one of those cobwebby back rooms and showed Connor how music was made in a much more real and immediate kind of way. They had done so and Connor had enjoyed himself immensely. Wesley feared it was only a matter of time before he asked for a guitar. He had unfortunately inherited Angel’s singing voice so they were all rather dreading that day.

By a process – as far as Wesley could tell – of no one else wanting the job, Wesley had been given the role of Connor’s tutor. Angel would hover around, looking over his shoulder and asking how Connor was doing, did he understand things, how well could he read? And Wesley would try to reassure him that Connor was very intelligent, had been well taught by Holtz, had old-fashioned views about science and geography and the like, of course, but Fred was teaching him maths and science while Wesley was working on his English and history and – most importantly – ethics. They had a lot of discussions about philosophy and theology, and some spirited arguments about it, too, as Wesley often didn’t agree with Holtz, and so far all of Connor’s opinions came directly from Holtz. 

Connor had demanded to see the full history of all Angel’s past crimes, of course. Wesley had stared him down on that one and handed him an assignment on vampires which he gave him a week to complete, detailing all the different theories various scholars had come up with over the centuries explaining exactly what happened when a human was turned into a vampire. Showing the ingenuity of all teenagers, Connor had gone directly to the source, and asked Angel to tell him exactly how it felt when one became a vampire, if you had the memories of the person you’d been before, why didn’t you have the same morality, the same compassion, the same feelings of attachment to the humans you had loved when your heart had still had a rhythm?

“Because you’re not really who you were…” Angel explained. “You look the same way and you have those memories but all the things that bind you to humanity, the things that made you who you were, they’re not a part of you any more. You don’t feel pity or remorse or compassion or love or tenderness. You just feel the hunger all the time, the hunger for blood and pain and the suffering of others. You feel more alive than you ever did before, so free because you don’t have all those petty little spasms of conscience that make being human such a misery… but you’re dead, you’re dead inside, because all those things that make you human, they’re the only things that matter, and being human it’s a gift you never even think about until you don’t have it any more…”

Only after Connor had handed in his paper – with lots of inkblots and so many loops and swirls from his copperplate handwriting that Wesley decided Cordelia definitely needed to step up those typing lessons – did Wesley agree to discuss Angelus with him. Wesley had certainly given him more assistance with the assignment than he would have done with a boy of Connor’s age who had a more ‘normal’ upbringing, giving him the pages in the books he wanted him to reference rather than just a bibliography, but Connor had at least read the chapters he’d given him and seemed to have thought about the different theories in some detail. He’d also added a conclusion about the importance of the human soul that was half Holtzian eighteenth century Christianity and half completely Connor. He had touched briefly on free will and how there was still no proof that an evil creature had no choice but to be evil but that if someone who had never committed a truly evil act before they became a vampire acted evil afterwards then it seemed to be the fault of the vampire nature, not the original human. He had concluded that as a vampire was a demon inhabiting a human corpse then it was entirely a demon, as the human had no control over what was done with its dead body. 

Wesley had read it with close attention while Connor fidgeted anxiously in the doorway. Wesley had made mild questioning comments in the margins whenever he found a piece of lazy thinking or something that felt as if it had come from Holtz unquestioningly instead of directly from Connor, but he had also gone out of his way to find things to praise, relieved that Connor did indeed have a good mind and a knack of expressing himself clearly and intelligently that truly merited praise.

He had finished with a summary of the reasons why Connor’s essay was well-reasoned but asked him to consider other questions in the future. Was it possible that the natural human condition tended towards evil, for instance? Did becoming a vampire free up a human to indulge himself in cruelty which he would otherwise be unable to enjoy because of the promptings of his conscience? Were the rules of God and Man that humankind had dreamt up to keep itself in check the only thing preventing every human from acting like a soulless vampire? Was it their feeling of disassociation from society and humanity that gave vampires their feelings of superiority? And how had both vampirism and the thin veneer of civilization that bound society together been addressed in human literature? Then he had handed Connor a copy of _Dracula_ and _Lord of the Flies_ and asked him to write about how reading them had made him feel about the questions they’d been discussing.

After a few weeks of getting Connor to ask himself questions about the nature of good and evil and nudging towards him a place where he could accept that life was not perhaps quite as black and white as Holtz had painted it to him, he told him that he could read everything Wesley had on Angelus – on condition that he first read through all the Angel Investigations files first so he could see for himself the difference in the way a vampire functioned with and without a soul.

Wesley had done his best to make it appear that this was just part of their philosophy lessons – the best example they had to hand to see the result of the soul in action. But inwardly he was crossing every finger and toe he possessed that he was handling this situation correctly. He wanted above all things for Connor to see the good in Angel and to allow himself to love his father without feeling that he was betraying Holtz. To be able to do that Connor needed to see that the demon who had murdered Holtz’s family was not the father who had held Connor in his arms as a baby.

Connor read through both files with interest and then looked up at Wesley. “You always want me to tell you what I think but you never tell me what you think.”

“Okay.” Wesley took a chair and sat on it. “What do you want to ask me?”

“What do you think the relationship is between what my father is now and what he was before?”

For a moment Wesley thought Connor was asking him some philosophical question about Holtz’s place in the afterlife, and whether or not he had won himself a place in heaven, but then he realized he meant Angel. He had to think that was a good sign in itself.

“I think that just as the demon who killed the human being that Angel used to be had access to his memories without ever having lived his life, so Angel has access to the memories of being Angelus without being the person who performed those deeds. I think that the person he is now was born when Angelus, the vampire, had Liam’s human soul forced back inside him. I think that who Angel is now is neither Angelus nor Liam but a third and separate entity who shares their memories.”

“What else do you think?” Connor pressed.

Wesley shrugged. “That Angel is noble and good and has done more to make the world a better place for humanity than anyone else I know.”

“Why wouldn’t you tell me that?”

“You didn’t ask.”

Connor put his head on one side. “You’re a strange man.”

Dryly, Wesley said, “Thank you.”

He was surprised to see Connor smile. After a pause the boy said, “Could you kill Angelus? If he came back?”

“If he was threatening Fred or Cordelia, yes.”

Connor examined him closely. “What if he was threatening you?”

Wesley had to stop and think about that one. He remembered Angelus in that darkened office advancing towards him, and in between the fear, the terrible anxiety for Cordelia and Miss Lowell the realization that Angel was still in there somewhere; that this was the moment Angel had told them to be ready for and he wasn’t, because there was a stake in that drawer and he was trying to think of every way he could not to have to pick it up. “I – don’t know. Angel does so much good. More than I ever could. He has an eternity in which to assist mankind – and there’s the prophecies and…”

Connor patted Wesley gently on the shoulder. “It’s okay. He’s told me what to do. If he turns, stand behind me. I’ll do what has to be done.”

Wesley didn’t know if that was a good sign or not, or what to make of Connor’s fascination with the Doximoll incident. Connor reread that file again now and after demanding that Wesley clarified a few things about what had happened, what exactly had been said and done, went off to talk to Angel about it, cornering the vampire in his room where he had sneaked off to try to drink some blood unseen.

“Did you want to say those things to Wesley and Cordelia when you were…you…?”

“No.” Angel looked surprised at the question. “I didn’t.”

“But you hadn’t really lost your soul, you just thought you had. So Angelus couldn’t really have been there, could he?”

“It felt as if he was.” Angel sat down on the bed with a sigh.

“Do you think you want to do bad things but you have to stop yourself all the time?”

“I’m not sure. I remember doing them. I remember enjoying them. But I hate myself for doing them and for enjoying them.”

Connor sat on the bed next to him. “Wesley says the person who committed those crimes wasn’t you.”

“That’s what Wesley believes.”

“What do you believe?”

Angel looked at his hands. “I know the demon is still in me. I’m not human. I’m a vampire. I can access that demon to make myself stronger, to heal faster, to jump higher, kill better. Angelus is always with me. He’s always there. I just can’t afford to let him take control.”

Connor considered that for a long moment. “But what about the humans with souls who commit murders? Do they have demons inside them as well?”

“I think there is darkness in every one. I think there was a darkness in me before I became Angelus. Maybe if someone had a completely pure soul a vampire wouldn’t be able to make it like itself. I don’t know. I don’t have any more answers than some of the people who wrote those books.”

Connor sighed. “Wesley says you’re good.”

“Wesley believes that. Wesley believes a lot of things. He’s a clever guy but he’s not right about everything. And in the end it doesn’t matter what anyone else believes, it’s what you believe that counts.”

“I think you killed a lot of people. I think you’ve saved a lot of people. I think the world doesn’t make any kind of sense. And if the soul is our connection to God and now you have one why can’t you touch a crucifix without it burning you?”

“Because I’m still a demon? Or because I believe it can hurt me? Because I believe God hates me? Because he really does?” Angel shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“The vampires who fed on Wesley? Who were they? What happened to them? Why didn’t they kill him?”

“They didn’t kill him because they liked hurting him too much to want to give that up. They came here after him, and Cordelia and Fred and Gunn killed them.”

“If they’d turned him into a vampire what would you have done?”

Angel closed his eyes. “When your mother was turned into a vampire I thought if I staked her it would give her some peace, stop her killing again. But now I wonder if I’d done that would I have sent her to hell? She would have died damned. The way she died, she was sharing your soul. Maybe she didn’t go to hell this time. If they’d turned Wesley and I killed him would I be condemning him to hell? Should I try to get his soul back? And if I did that, then I’d be condemning him to a life like this, drinking blood, living in the shadows, spurned by humanity, but wanting to help them, and the hunger with you all the time…”

“Would you do it?” Connor demanded. “And if he was dying, if there was no other way to save him, would you make him like you?”

Angel grimaced. “I don’t know, Connor. And I really don’t want to think about it.”

“Wesley said vampires think they’re better than humans. Don’t you think that?”

“No.” Angel looked aghast. “Of course not. Maybe vampires only tell themselves that to block out how cold they feel.”

“I think there’s a darkness in me,” Connor said thoughtfully. “I enjoyed killing on Quor’toth.”

Angel looked into his eyes. “Did you enjoy hurting Wesley? When you cut him with the knife and he bled did you enjoy that?”

Connor frowned. “No. I don’t think so. I remember being angry with him because he wouldn’t fight back and I wanted to kill someone because my father was dead.” He looked at Angel sideways. “Both of them, actually.”

“If you’d been a vampire it wouldn’t have mattered if he fought back or not, you would still have gone on hurting him. That’s the difference between being angry and grieving and not having a soul. I hurt him too when I was angry and grieving. I tried to kill him.”

Connor half-smiled. “No, you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did.”

“If you’d tried to kill him he’d be dead.”

Wesley heard that as he came to look for Connor, for a moment he stood in the corridor outside Angel’s room, knowing Angel could hear his heartbeat and Connor could probably pick up his scent. For a second he was back in that hospital with the pillow over his head and Angel screaming all that hate and anger at him.

“I was lucky,” Angel said quietly. “There are some things you can never put right again. If Gunn hadn’t been there… It’s too easy for people like us to kill, Connor. Because we’re stronger and faster and we’re harder to really injure. But that just means we have to be extra careful, because it’s something you can’t ever undo, you can’t ever take it back. You just have to live with it, even when you can’t live with it, but you don’t have the choice not to because there’s no way to make amends if you’re dead.”

Wesley knocked on the door. “Connor, you left half my files scattered over the office floor and Fred wants to show you how gravity works.”

Connor sprang to his feet. “I know how gravity works. She told me all about Isaac Newton yesterday.”

Wesley shrugged. “I suspect this lesson will involve eating large quantities of tacos and then dropping things from a great height to see what kind of a splat they make.”

“Cool!” Connor slapped Wesley on the shoulder as he went past. “I can pick up those files later, yes?”

“No,” Wesley assured him. “You can pick them up now and put them back in the right order.”

Rolling his eyes and muttering something under his breath about the anal retentiveness of certain skinny white Englishmen that sounded as if it was copied verbatim from Gunn, Connor sped off at a sprint before leaping gracefully over the banister to land in the lobby with perfect balance. Wesley and Angel both watched him springing over to where Fred and Gunn were waiting for him. 

“You’re really going to let him touch your files?” Angel enquired in surprise. “Because last time I checked he learned his filing system from Cordelia.”

“Good point.” Wesley darted to the head of the stairs and hastily shouted down to Connor that he could leave the files, just this once, as he didn’t want to stop Fred getting her lunch.

“Did someone say lunch?” Cordelia appeared from the office, looking very over-dressed for filing and with Groo on her arm. “How about we take Connor somewhere swankier than Taco Bell? I was just thinking I haven’t really shown Groo any of the nice places in LA, only the – alleys that smell of urine and have rats in them, which all those squishy demons seem to like so much. Lorne? Do you want to come with us for lunch?”

“No, thank you, pumpkin,” Lorne assured her. “I’m planning to take Junior out to some sleazy demon bars later this week and need to pace myself hangover wise.”

“You’re planning to what…?” Angel demanded.

Connor waved a hand at him. “Cool it, Dad. Gunn’s coming too. They’re going to show me the seamy side of LA.” 

Angel started at that ‘Dad’ but managed to get his voice under control enough to say: “And this is supposed to reassure me, why exactly…?” 

“Can we argue about it later?” Connor pleaded. “My stomach’s rumbling and you know how dangerous Fred gets when she’s hungry.”

Angel waited until they were outside of the doors and definitely out of earshot before he grabbed Wesley by the shoulders. “He called me ‘Dad’.”

“I know.” Wesley beamed back at him.

Then Angel enveloped him in a hug that made his ribs ache but not with pain. “We got him back, Wes,” he breathed. “We got him back.”

Wesley looked after the departing group in happy bewilderment. Connor was play-punching Gunn in the ribs and Fred was pretending to pull his ear in reprimand. Cordelia was laughing at something Groo had said. “I never thought for a minute that… I really think we did, Angel. I think he wants to be here.” He looked at his watch. “I have to go to my place – I have some books I think he’d find interesting and I need to get some more clothes.”

“You should give up that apartment,” Angel said unexpectedly. 

Wesley gaped at him. “What?”

“Well, we have a limited income. It doesn’t make any sense for you to be paying rent for an apartment when we’re already paying rent on this place and there are all these rooms standing empty. I know Cordy needs her own place because of Groo and – Dennis and being a girl and everything but as Fred and Gunn and Connor and Lorne are already here and you…”

“…have no life?”

“Exactly.”

“I – don’t know what to say.”

“I’m suggesting you move in, Wes, not that we get married and buy a dog.”

Wesley feigned disappointment. “We can’t have a dog?”

“Look, if you hate the idea of not being able to get away from the rest of us...”

“Oh, I definitely hate that idea,” Wesley assured him. “But you’re right about the limited resources. And I suppose we do make ourselves vulnerable by having separate places...” He remembered the knife flashing, the sensation of the blade cutting his throat, that second when he didn’t realize what had happened until the pain hit and he felt the blood spilling. He didn’t even know he was stumbling until Angel caught him by the arms and held him steady.

“Wes…?”

He collected himself with an effort. “Groo escorts Cordelia home and I hope the visions would warn her if she were in any serious danger, but perhaps it might be more cost-effective for me to move in here, and it would solve that problem of the books I want always either being in the office when I’m home or at home when I’m in the office.”

“I could come with you now. Help you get stuff?” Angel suggested.

“It would make more sense for Gunn to take me in his truck. And there is the whole – daylight issue as well.”

Angel seemed to notice the sunshine for the first time. “Oh yes. Okay. But do it soon.”

Wesley frowned at him. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

Angel sighed. “No, yes… It’s just – Wolfram & Hart were sniffing around your place a couple of weeks ago. Wanted to ask Gunn some questions when he was picking up some of your stuff. It’s probably nothing but I’d feel happier if you were staying here every evening and not going off by yourself to an empty apartment.” There was a pause before Angel said intently, “I don’t want anything else happening to you. Connor isn’t the only one I just got back.”

Wesley was terribly touched by that; so much so that he had to hastily drop his gaze so Angel wouldn’t see how moved he was by the vampire’s renewed declaration of friendship. “I’ll just grab a few things for now and get Gunn to help me move out on the weekend.”

Angel nodded. “Okay. Now, come and pick out a room.”

“I like the one I have.” They were standing outside it, by chance. It was next to Angel’s. Wesley opened the door so they could both look inside.

“Really?” Angel looked at him in surprise. “But don’t you have…bad associations with it? I was thinking you could have the bigger one over the hall.”

“I like this one. And it has good associations.”

“It does?” Angel peered in through the doorway and Wesley could see him remembering tossing Wesley roughly onto the bed and all those bouts of having his bandages changed, the painful limps across the room, the chilly sessions sitting in the bath while Angel washed dried semen out of his hair. 

“I remember people I care for very much bringing me soup and ice cream, and another person trying not to hurt me when he changed my dressings even though I’d just lost him the only child he’d ever have.” Wesley risked meeting Angel’s eyes. “I want to keep this room.”

“I sort of think of it as yours now anyway.” Angel looked around the room with more interest. “We could repaint it if you like. Put some of your swords on the wall. Get you a better bookcase.”

“I have bookcases.” 

“Okay, let’s work out where your furniture would go…” Angel pulled him into the room, excited by the project now Wesley had consented to it, examining the tiling in the bathroom with a critical eye in case it didn’t measure up. Wesley had forgotten how childish Angel could be about new enthusiasms. Perhaps because he’d had to be so restrained about Connor coming back, and not show any of the joy he was feeling too obviously in case it looked as if he were taking the boy’s acceptance for granted, he had clearly decided to channel his enthusiasm into decorating Wesley’s room as well. He demanded that everyone chipped in the moment the others came back, and worked out the best colour for the walls, curtains and carpets that Wesley was already perfectly satisfied with exactly the way they were.

Looking at paint colours and peering into abandoned rooms for furniture that could be moved to Wesley’s bedroom inevitably led to Connor pointing out which colours he liked best and which pieces of furniture he preferred, and by the time the sun was going down, Connor had unconsciously made it clear to everyone in the hotel that he now thought of the Hyperion as home.

They waited for him to head off to the bathroom with reasonable restraint and then met up in the hallway to give in and in Cordelia and Fred’s case utter barely muted squeals of relief. Cordelia hugged Fred and swung her around while Gunn, Angel and Wesley thumped one another in a manly way and Groo solemnly shook hands with Lorne.

“Okay, so his idea of home decorating is that from now on we cut the heads off every demon we kill so he can stuff and mount them and stick them on his wall, but, hey, it’s still an indication he wants to stay here, right?” Cordelia demanded breathlessly.

Gunn nodded. “Damned straight. No one bags a moth-eaten tigerskin for his bedroom if he’s not planning to stick around. You’re not going to let him have that in there though, are you, Angel, because that thing is probably harbouring all kinds of nasties?”

“Of course, if you don’t he may think it’s a reasonable idea to drop into the zoo one night and pull a Mowgli,” Cordelia pointed out. 

Wesley frowned. “Didn’t Mowgli kill Shere Khan by tricking him into a gully and then getting a lot of cattle to stampede over him? I’m not sure it would actually be possible to replicate those circumstances in Los…” Seeing everyone looking at him with pitying expressions, he cleared his throat. “Not being strictly literal with the Mowgli references then? I see.”

Cordelia looked at Lorne. “Next time we go shopping one of us really needs to buy Wesley a life.”

“Top of my shopping list, princess,” the demon assured her.

Wesley looked at his watch. “Well, if you’ve all quite finished insulting me, I really do need to go and pick up a few things from my flat. Try not to do anything wonderfully exciting while I’m not here, will you?”

“Hah.” Cordelia poked him in the chest. “Don’t think we couldn’t if we wanted to. We’re just – pacing ourselves. Just because all you’ve seen us doing is the whole brain-melting tedium and constant poverty interspersed with moments of bone-shattering terror and near-death trauma, doesn’t mean we couldn’t be having a really fun time if we wanted to.”

Wesley was still grinning about that as he went down to the basement where his motorbike was standing next to Angel’s car. Gunn had brought it over for him a few weeks before, omitting to tell Wesley until he’d had the fun of riding around on it for a few hours that he’d never actually passed a test for driving a motorcycle, particularly not a high-powered Triumph. Thinking of that, Wesley examined it for new scratches and had to admit that he couldn’t actually see any despite Gunn telling him terrible things about taking it over loose gravel at high speed. He took off his glasses to put on the helmet and then almost jumped out of his skin as a familiar female voice drawled lazily:

“Why, Mr Wyndam-Pryce, you’re beautiful.”

He spun around with his heart hammering to see Lilah Morgan, wearing something tailored and no doubt expensive. She lazily picked a stray thread from her dark silk jacket and then glanced up at him in a way that he had to admit, if only in the privacy of his head, did light something of a fire in his loins.

“Can I help you?” he enquired frostily, hastily putting on his glasses and hoping they bestowed him with some dignity as he did so.

“Actually, I’m here to help you.” She stepped forward and he had to admit that she really was a striking-looking woman. “Don’t go to your apartment alone.”

“Why not?” 

“Why do you think?” As he continued to stare a challenge, she sighed impatiently. “Our seers say you’ve learned how to hop dimensions. That makes you a wizard of considerable power. That, combined with the inside information you have on Angel Investigations, just makes you way too kidnappable to resist.” She moved in closer and he felt her breath tickle his stubble. “And they wouldn’t even want to do anything fun with you, it would be all…drugs and hypnotism and lots of the wrong kinds of pain.”

“There are right kinds of pain?”

She smiled at him seductively. “Oh, you’re just begging me to demonstrate that one, aren’t you?”

He stepped back. “I’ve really had enough pain to last me a lifetime, Ms Morgan.”

“So formal. And here was I thinking that you and I were on the fast track to some really good meaningless sex before you pulled that little disappearing act. Still wondering how exactly you did that, I have to say. Leave one place, turn up in another six days later with no visible trail between the two. Neat trick if you can do it.”

He thought of that stinking basement in the other dimension and shuddered. “Trust me, you really wouldn’t want to learn that one.”

“You went after him, didn’t you?” She closed the distance between them and if it had been anyone but Lilah Morgan he would have said that was compassion in her eyes. “Connor?”

“I never left the city.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. He had stayed in Los Angeles throughout his little visit to another dimension.

She inclined her head, smiling. “Kind of an odd coincidence, isn’t it? You vanish in a big crackle of inter-dimensional activity and the next time our seers pick up anything it’s all happening here, and lo and behold there’s a teenage boy in Angel’s hotel that the Texas twiglet is calling ‘Connor’.”

“I can assure you that I have never been to Quor’toth and have no idea of how to get there.”

Lilah widened her eyes mockingly. “Scout’s honour, Mr Wyndam-Pryce?”

He made the scout salute. “Absolutely.”

She laughed. “I actually believe you.”

“Tell Linwood and his hired thugs that I don’t know how to get to Quor’toth or any other demon dimension he may have pencilled in for his summer holidays this year.”

“Go to your apartment alone and you’ll be telling him yourself. Probably over and over and over again. In between the writhing and screaming.”

He shuddered before he could stop himself and she narrowed her eyes, again that flicker of something that could almost have been human empathy in her gaze. “It really wasn’t Disneyworld you visited, was it?”

“It was nowhere that was useful to Wolfram & Hart unless you consider the basement of the Hyperion an area of outstanding natural beauty.”

Her eyes widened. “Is that it? Angel brought you here? He…? What did he do to you?”

“Nothing. And Angel didn’t bring me here. I just tried something that didn’t work and this was where I ended up, only not in the shape in which I’d left.”

She looked relieved and then mocking. “Oh, and the noble hero just had to disappoint everyone by going all goody-goody again and taking you in, didn’t he?”

Wesley shrugged. “What can I say? Once a champion, always a champion.”

“So you’ve kissed and made up with the Gang of…how many of you are there now?”

“Sorry, Lilah, you’ll have to stake us out in the old fashioned way to work that one out. We removed the security cameras.”

“I know. Why do you think I’m risking my life warning you about the welcoming committee at your apartment? Which, you still haven’t thanked me for, I notice.”

“He’ll send you some flowers.”

They both jumped as Angel and Gunn stepped out of the shadows, Gunn holding an axe in a way that was certainly not subtle.

Lilah glanced dismissively at Angel. “I’m expecting a little more than that for saving his life. Which is what I’m doing, by the way. At least the bits of his life that don’t involve lots of pain and suffering, not to mention hallucinogenic drugs.”

“Why are you doing that again?” Gunn enquired. “Cause I’m thinking ‘goodness of your heart’ probably not the reason.”

She shrugged. “Office politics. I want Linwood’s job. I’d do it better than he does and I’m much smarter. Just making sure that when the annual review comes up he has a few more blots on his copybook.” She glanced at Wesley. “And maybe I have a preference for you keeping that big brain in that handsome head of yours.” She looked him up and down in a way that was simultaneously insultingly obvious and annoyingly arousing. “And flowers aren’t going to cut it for this favour. For this you owe me a nooner.” 

And then she was gone and Wesley found himself looking between Angel and Gunn in confusion. “What’s a nooner?”

Angel and Gunn exchanged what looked like a _pas devant les enfants_ glance. “Something that makes it possible Lilah, the evil lying bitch lawyer, may actually be telling the truth this time, on account of her having her own entirely selfish motives for keeping you in one piece,” Gunn conceded with a shrug.

“One working piece.” Angel and Gunn exchanged another glance and then looked at Wesley curiously.

“I knew she wanted to get groiny with him.” Cordelia’s sudden appearance made Wesley jump nervously. “First Angel and now Wesley. You wouldn’t think it to look at her shoes, but that woman really has no standards.”

Angel and Wesley exchanged a mutually insulted glance but before either of them could formulate a protest Cordelia had already moved on briskly to her next sentence: “So, what’s the plan? I’m presuming that sending Wesley off to get kidnapped for his…big mojo is probably not on the agenda?”

“I’d say keeping Wesley away from his apartment at all costs was more what we had in mind.” Angel frowned. “Linwood has every reason to be…”

“Screw Linwood,” Gunn put in. “Sounds as if Lilah’s going to be there waiting for him with a butterfly net every day Linwood and his goons aren’t. Wes definitely needs to be confined to quarters until further notice.”

“Do I get a say in this?” Wesley demanded.

Angel, Gunn and Cordelia all said ‘No’ with equal firmness.

“Because it occurs to me,” he continued, ignoring them, “that this is most likely a ploy to capture Connor. Lilah comes here to send all of you on a wild goose chase to my flat while Wolfram & Hart storm the hotel and steal Connor. Doesn’t that seem like the most likely explanation to you?”

Angel shook his head. “Wes, Lilah can’t make her pupils dilate at will or send out ‘mate with me now’ pheromones just to please her boss. I’m not saying that every word out of her mouth wasn’t a lie, but the naked lust – that was genuine.”

“Don’t kid yourself,” Cordelia assured him. “She’s expecting to collect on that nooner.”

“But Connor…”

“Isn’t the only valuable thing in this hotel.” Angel squeezed Wesley’s shoulder briefly and although it was annoying and patronising of them for to all be dismissing his comments, it wasn’t entirely unpleasant to be considered valuable.

They returned to the lobby to discuss Lilah’s visit, Wesley checking outside to see if there was any sign of a Wolfram & Hart SWAT team arriving to grab Angel’s son, while the others planned without him. He returned to the lobby to find Angel and Gunn nodding decisively at one another in a way that made him distinctly nervous.

Wesley looked between them. “I suppose recent events have rendered it impossible for me to point out that you, Angel, could never strategize your way out of a wet paper bag?”

Angel looked him up and down. “This coming from the guy who took a wrong turn to an alternate dimension last time he tried to alter time?”

Wesley sighed. “I knew it. Gunn, just remember the deep thought that went into Angel’s cunning plan to get you both into Wolfram & Hart.”

“Hey, smartass, Fred and I came up with this strategy.” Cordelia handed out weapons as she spoke. “You really think we’d let Gunn and Angel out there using a plan Mr Walking Real Fast and Use Myself As Human Bait Boy had dreamed up?”

Relieved, he nodded. “Okay, what is the plan then?”

He wasn’t terribly impressed with Cordelia and Fred’s plan either but he had to reluctantly concede that it was probably the best idea. Angel and Gunn were going over to Wesley’s apartment, armed with tranquilliser darts and large frightening weapons, and Angel was going to scare the stuffing out of anyone he found there who worked for Wolfram & Hart, making it very clear in the process that Wesley was off-limits and that if Wesley disappeared or was even a few minutes late coming home from the hot dog stand, Angel was going to hold Linwood personally responsible. Connor, of course, wanted to accompany them, something which made Wesley protest loudly that taking Connor into a situation where there were people already in place in kidnap mode was just insane, which only made Connor even more determined to go until Fred pointed out that if the Wolfram & Hart kidnappers split their forces and Lilah’s warning had in fact been a feint then while Angel, Connor and Gunn were all out of the hotel, the bad guys could rush into the Hyperion and grab Wesley from there. This, of course, also applied to Connor – the more likely subject for a kidnap attempt in Wesley’s opinion. But it certainly convinced Connor as an argument, and he conceded that Fred, Cordelia, and Wesley would be better protected by him and Groo than Groo alone. Wesley strongly objected to being classified along with the girls who needed to be protected as he was almost back to full fitness and was actually a demon hunter, thank you very much. 

“Would that be a rogue demon hunter, Wes?” Cordy enquired with a straight face. “Because I’m still not too clear on what those old rogue demons actually are. Are they the ones with really bad table manners?”

“Well, having seen you attempt to eat linguine, I suppose you’re the person best placed to answer that…”

“Children…” Angel sighed. “Can we save the immature squabbling until _after_ the evil kidnappers have been vanquished? Connor, stop teasing Wesley and give him the flame thrower. Cordelia, don’t you think someone chosen by the Powers That Be to bear a sacred trust should be above sticking her tongue out? Connor, I’m trusting you to keep them all safe, okay? Groo, can you guard the garden entrance with Wes? Cordy, you, Lorne, and Fred keep watch – obviously until people attack – whereupon hitting them with large heavy objects would probably be a good plan. Connor, don’t kill anyone human unless they really piss you off.”

“Angel…” Wesley protested, thinking of several weeks’ worth of ethical debates going west in a few careless words.

Angel rolled his eyes. “Okay, don’t kill anyone human unless Uncle Wesley or Aunt Cordy say you can. Gunn, let’s go and frighten some lawyers.”

“I’m all over that idea.” 

As they departed jauntily on their mission, Connor turned to Wesley and Cordelia. “You do know I’m not going to call you ‘Uncle Wesley’ or ‘Aunt Cordelia’ – ever, don’t you?”

“Thank god for small mercies,” Wesley observed with feeling.

“Damned straight.” Cordelia raised her sword and they waited.

And waited. And waited.

After an hour and a half of waiting, Groo was the only one who wasn’t fidgeting as if he had inadvertently sat down upon an ants’ nest. He, in fact, seemed mildly surprised by their impatience. “Was it not sometimes necessary to keep absolutely still in the scum pits of Quor’toth?”

“We didn’t have scum pits.” Connor tossed his axe from hand to hand restlessly. “And on Quor’toth it was usually safer to keep moving. Are these people coming or not?”

“Not.” 

Wesley spun around to find Angel and Gunn stepping through the basement door, and just for a second, his mind froze, even though he knew this Gunn was human and this Angel had a soul, for a moment his instincts were stronger than his reason, and the fear jolted through him. 

Gunn didn’t notice anything, grinning from ear to ear as he swung his axe in his hand. “ _Not_ a feint and obviously not coming here as Lilah certainly told the truth about the evil kidnappers at Wes’s place. You should have been there. It was fun. Angel vamped out and I can tell you there was a lot of screaming, possibly some panty-wetting too.”

“Are you hurt?” Fred went forward anxiously.

Gunn waved a dismissive hand. “Few cuts and bruises and pulled muscles but I’m too pumped up to feel anything right now. Can you believe those sons-of-bitches were really going to snatch Wes? Had hypodermics there and everything, not to mention the whole van with men in white coats and trolley to strap him…”

Angel had already dropped his sword and started sprinting. He caught Wesley under the arms as the lobby performed a pirouette. “Easy, Wes.”

“Just…feel a little…”

“Are you going to faint like a girl?” The words were all the old Cordelia but the expression in her eyes was a hundred percent anxiety.

Wesley found a smile from somewhere. “I thought it would make a change from screaming like one.”

Angel and Connor helped him over to the banquette in the lobby and sat him down on it. Connor looked at him anxiously. “Why has he gone that colour? What are we supposed to do? Does he need smelling salts? Or should I slap him?”

“No, thank you.” Wesley held up a hand. “I wouldn’t hate a glass of…”

But Fred was already putting one between his fingers. “Have you got it?” 

He nodded. “Thank you.” He sipped the water carefully, the world receding from that greyed out hissing place to something that came in more colour than monochrome. “I’m sorry it was just the… I hadn’t expected…”

“Angel and Gunn to come home all blood-spattered and bragging?” Cordelia demanded, sitting down next to him and taking his hand in hers. “Yeah, that shocked me too, cause it’s not as if they don’t do that every day.” She was still smiling at him, but there was that concern in her eyes that made him feel simultaneously anxious and warmed to the bone.

“I’m sorry,” Angel said penitently. “We should have thought how it would look to you – come in the other way.”

“No, it’s…” Wesley looked up at him. “I don’t why I… I was so sure it was a feint and it’s just the first time I’d seen you and Gunn…”

“Oh, damn.” Gunn bowed his head. “They came in that way, didn’t they? Vampy and Skanky from the other dimension – up from the damned basement.”

Connor looked between them in shock. “The vampires who hurt Wesley – they looked like you?”

“It was another world,” Wesley said quickly. “Things happened differently there. It’s not relevant to this dimension.” He focused on Angel’s red-spattered shirt. “You’re bleeding.”

The vampire shrugged. “They squeezed off a couple of shots. Nothing serious. But, they won’t be trying the kidnap thing again. I told them you were under my protection and if anything happened to you I was going to personally take it out of Linwood’s skin, piece by piece. I think they got the message.”

“Thank you.” Wesley looked up at him in relief. “Both of you.”

“Kind of figured we owed you one,” Gunn grimaced. “On the cosmic karma scale.”

“And you do owe Lilah one,” Angel admitted. “They had a whole special ops team there to grab you and they meant business.”

“Why didn’t you tell me the vampires who hurt him looked like you?” Connor demanded of Angel.

“I thought you knew,” Angel admitted. “You mentioned the vampires who hurt Wes, I figured he must have told you about it.”

“All he told me was that it wasn’t you who fed from him.”

“It wasn’t. Gunn and Angel didn’t do anything to me. They just share a physical resemblance to the vampires that did.” He winced at the blood on Angel’s shirt. “Shouldn’t we bandage that up? Or are you trying to look extra stoic in front of your son?”

“Well, I _was_ ,” Angel protested, “but as you’ve blown that now I may as well bitch and whine as much as usual.” He took a seat next to Wesley as Cordelia and Fred went off to fetch the bandages, not because, as they pointed out, the men were any less capable of doctoring themselves but because they were extra pathetically whiny unless they got female attention after being damaged in a fight. “So, what are you going to do about that nooner you owe Lilah?” Angel enquired.

Wesley looked at the rips in Gunn’s clothes, the bloodstains on Angel’s shirt. “Well, I do apparently owe her my gratitude.”

“It wasn’t your gratitude she was eyeing up back there.” Cordelia set the first aid kit down on the banquette. “Shirts off, manly warriors. Prepare to get the antiseptic where it hurts.”

“Maybe this is the time to tell you that on account of wanting to set Connor a good example, you’re not allowed to have girls in your room.”

“What?” Wesley looked at him in disbelief.

“House rule.” Angel shrugged. “I run a clean hotel.”

“Except for the demon pus we never managed to get out of room 109,” Fred said brightly. She looked at Gunn appreciatively as he pulled his ripped sweatshirt over his head, revealing some exciting looking cuts and bruises and some impressive lean musculature. “I’m so glad I’m allowed boys in _my_ room.”

“Sorry, Fred,” Angel deadpanned. “From now on I’ve decided you have to live like a nun so that Connor will grow up in an atmosphere of virtue and contemplation and – what are you doing with that crucifix?”

Fred held it up threateningly. “I’m just pointing out that anyone who comes between a Texan girl and her man can expect to feel the pointy end of a stake or the sizzling side of a cross.”

“If Fred’s allowed to have boys in her room I think I should be, too.” Wesley realized that had come out wrong. “Girls, I mean. Be allowed to have girls in my room.”

“Well, you can’t.” Angel shrugged. “Not while Lilah’s after your virtue. Nothing that woman wanted to do to you in bed would be a fit thing to have happening under my roof.”

Wesley had a brief flashback to Lilah eyeing him up in the car park. Damn. Definitely a blatant, unsubtle and positively insulting…sexy, really, really sexy come-on... “I might be able to obtain inside information on Wolfram & Hart.”

Cordelia patted his shoulder. “Gee, Wes, there’s no sacrifice you’re not prepared to make for the cause, is there?”

“I’m with Angel,” Gunn said in disgust. “No way do I want to be getting sweaty and naked in the same hotel as Lilah’s getting sweaty and naked with Wes cause that would just be…yeuch.”

“Does Wesley not now owe this woman a debt of honour?” Groo enquired.

Wesley held up a hand. “See, Groo thinks I owe Lilah a debt of honour. And Groo is never wrong.”

“He wanted Angel to paint his bedroom in summer splendour,” Fred pointed out.

“Except perhaps in the matter of some minor decorating decisions of no particular consequence.”

“Lilah would want to handcuff you to the bed and then…” Cordelia narrowed her eyes. “I’m just turning you on now, aren’t I?”

Wesley collected himself with an effort. “Handcuffs, you say? Shocking.” Memories of the cuffs clicking closed, the chain being wrapped around a pipe, jolted through him, but he dismissed it quickly. There was just that lingering chill, as if a cloud had passed in front of the sun. Then he thought about a woman – any woman – seeing him naked, seeing his scars, asking him about them. And Lilah would ask about them. She’d trace them with a manicured forefinger and whisper hotly in his ear that there was nothing like the signs of past torture to turn on a lawyer. He snatched a breath. “Actually… I think Angel may have a point about the enforced celibacy, at least for a while. I’m not really up to…dating.”

“Of course you’re not, pumpkin,” Lorne said tactfully. “You need to move in first, get settled, let Cordelia and I do something about your wardrobe. Like – burning all your clothes, for instance.”

“Teaching him to dance,” Cordelia added. “That would be another kindness to any women he might be planning to date.”

Wesley gave them both what he hoped was a quelling glance. “I would like to send Lilah some flowers though, if there’s a way to do it that won’t get her killed.”

“Information would probably be more use to her.” Angel tossed a wallet to Wesley which was intercepted in mid-air by Connor. “Took it from Linwood. You could always take her out to lunch tomorrow and give that to her. It has some interesting business cards she may find useful. Just resist the urge to put out however much she come hithers you.”

Connor sniffed the wallet curiously before tossing it to Wesley. “But if this woman you speak of is going to win power and influence for herself in the place of your enemies wouldn’t it be a good idea if Wesley did…”

“Give it up for the cause?” Cordelia enquired. “I don’t think so. I don’t think we’re actually desperate enough yet to start prostituting ourselves for information. Personally, I’m not even sold on the lunch idea. What if she drugs his food?”

“Fred and I can keep an eye out from a discreet distance.” Gunn looked plaintively at the bandages that weren’t being applied to his wounds. 

Wesley reached for the bandages. “I think you can all back off and admit that it’s none of your business. At the very least I certainly owe her a nice lunch in a half-decent restaurant.”

“Is talking about lunch in swanky restaurants making anyone else hungry?” Fred had picked up the antiseptic ointment but now she put it down again.

“Now you come to mention it…” Cordelia rose to her feet while Angel pointed at the bullet holes in his chest pathetically. She tossed a bandage to Wesley. “Wes, you can patch these two up, can’t you? Lorne, Groo, want to accompany Fred and I to a place that sells large quantities of cheap hot food?”

“You sold me, sugar pie, especially if it means I don’t have to watch these two bleeding on the marble again.”

“It is always an honour to accompany my princess anywhere.” Groo bowed politely and Cordy beamed at him.

Fred kissed Gunn consolingly on the forehead. “Now, you know you’re always ravenous after you get to kill something. Don’t worry. I’ll be right back with lots of food.”

Then they were gone and Angel and Gunn were exchanging hurt ‘the women of our dreams don’t love us’ looks.

“But we didn’t get to kill anything!” Angel protested. “We only got to – bruise and frighten them a little.”

“Never mind.” Wesley picked up the ointment and handed Connor a bandage. “I dab, you wrap. Which reminds me – I need to show you some books on Ancient Egyptian culture. I think you’ll find it fascinating. One of the most interesting things in my opinion is the different approach to the anthropomorphisation of animals. Whereas in western culture we tend to attribute certain characteristics to animals – cunning for foxes, courage for lions and so on, and those attributes are consistent in the most ancient mythology _and_ children’s books written many thousands of years later, the Ancient Egyptians could have two different gods represented by the same bird or animal that displayed entirely opposite characteristics. For instance…” He noticed that Angel and Connor were rolling their eyes at one another and sighed. “Fine, no lessons outside of school hours.”

“We brought your books,” Gunn offered in consolation. “They’re in the basement. I didn’t let Angel bleed on them.” As Wesley carefully stuck on the sterile gauze with elastic adhesive, Gunn added, “And you dress wounds way better than Cordy does too.”

“It’s easier when you’ve had them yourself.” Wesley winced at the bruising on Gunn’s ribs. “Are you sure nothing’s broken?”

“Don’t think so. Wouldn’t hate a painkiller or six though.”

Connor’s attempt to dress Angel’s wounds was much more slapdash. He smeared Neosporin across them thickly and then applied the gauze with rather too much force before having some trouble with the sticky tape. Wesley left him to it and went off to make Angel and Gunn cups of tea so they could take their painkillers. When he got back, Angel was protesting that he thought Connor had really done enough nursing for one day and he should let Wesley finish up.

“He won’t learn if you don’t let him practice, Angel,” Wesley pointed out, handing Gunn his tea and the extra strength Tylenol.

“Well, he can practice on the next person who gets injured.” Angel took the bandage out of Connor’s hands and gave it to Wesley. “He’s enjoying this way too much.”

Wesley sighed but took the bandage and gently strapped up Angel’s ribs while Connor watched critically. 

“So, you don’t pull it so tight then…?”

“No, because on a human that would cut off the blood flow, not to mention causing them considerable pain, and I always find it best to treat Angel as if he were any other human, except for the not panicking and rushing him to the emergency room when he staggers in bleeding from several different wounds that would actually well – kill any other human.”

“But he’s not any other human,” Connor pointed out.

Wesley applied another piece of antiseptic gauze to Angel’s third bullet wound. “No, most people don’t have a destiny that is recorded in sacred texts. Just the two of you.”

Connor exchanged a glance with Angel that was proud and fond. Not looking up from his bandaging, Wesley said, “Connor, could you get Angel some blood? You need to pour it from one of the packs in the fridge into one of the plastic beakers – not a metal one and definitely not a mug any of the rest of us use – and put it in the microwave for one minute. Do you remember how to use the microwave?”

“Of course. Cordy says I’m already way better at using technology than he is.” Connor jerked a thumb at Angel and set off at a sprint.

“So is a two year old with impaired motor skills and ADD,” Gunn pointed out. 

“Wes, I was trying to keep him from the whole…blood-drinking creature of the night thing…” Angel murmured.

“I know.” Wesley stuck the last piece of waterproof tape around the gauze and then looked up at him calmly. “But he needs to accept you for what you are, Angel. Or rather you need to realize that he has accepted you for what you are.”

Connor bounced back out of the kitchen carrying the beaker, before Wesley had finished clearing up the first aid supplies.

“Here you are.” He thrust it at Angel and watched curiously. 

Nervously, Angel sipped at the blood and then as his hunger kicked in, gulped and swallowed. 

“What does it taste like?” Connor demanded.

“You should try some.” Wesley packed the last of the supplies away neatly. “We all have. Well, except for Gunn, who’s squeamish, but then he’s frightened of rats.”

Angel grimaced. “Ugh, remember that time Cordy drank it straight out of the fridge? That was gross.”

“Time of the month?” Gunn asked sympathetically. 

“Demon pregnancy,” Wesley explained. 

“Let me try it.” Connor held out a hand and Angel handed the beaker to him. Connor took a gulp of blood, savoured it for a moment and then swallowed. He shrugged. “It’s not so bad – kind of salty.” He offered the beaker to Gunn who shook his head.

“I’ll pass, thanks.”

“Wesley?” Connor offered it.

Wesley took it from him and handed it back to Angel. “Once was enough for me. I found the thickness of the liquid difficult to deal with. Too much like school gravy. I kept thinking someone was going to make me eat all my Brussels sprouts.”

Angel finished the blood in a few gulps and Connor took the beaker from him. “Do you need more? Wesley says it helps you to heal faster.”

Angel looked at him in surprise. “Well, if you don’t mind, I...”

“Sure.” The boy gave him a cheerful smile and headed off to refill the beaker. 

Angel looked at Wesley in surprise. “He seems…okay about it.”

“Angel, your son grew up in a hell dimension and was raised by an eighteenth century vampire hunter. Is it really so surprising that he can take a little blood drinking in his stride? Connor’s a very intelligent boy with a strong desire to do good and a craving for family as strong as…your own.” He looked at the doors of the hotel. “Wolfram & Hart probably are going to come after him at some point.”

“Let them come.” Angel flexed his bandaged arm. “With you, me, Connor, Gunn and Groo here, not to mention Lorne’s empathy, Cordy’s demon glowy powers and Fred’s super-charged science brain, they’re going to have a hard time trying to get any of us. As long as we stick together.” He looked at Wesley intently. 

Wesley nodded. “Good point.”

“And we can do a lot more good together than we can separated.”

Wesley looked up at Angel in surprise. “I wasn’t planning on going anywhere.”

“Kind of not an option any more, Wes.” Gunn handed him his keys. “Your place is pretty much trashed. I think you can wave goodbye to your security deposit. But the books are fine. So are the weapons. The couch is kind of…icky though.”

“Hey, they shot me three times, I had to bleed somewhere,” Angel protested.

“Some of the furniture is sort of…” Gunn turned to Angel. “What’s the word I’m looking for?”

“Kindling.” Angel picked up his tea and gazed at it. “Didn’t we use to drink coffee before Wesley came back here?”

“It’s insidious.” Gunn shrugged. “Fred’s started wanting marmalade on her toast in the mornings. And Groo asked for a ‘biscuit’ with his tea yesterday.”

Wesley smiled smugly. “At last, civilization comes to Los Angeles.” He looked at the keys. “‘Kindling’? Really?”

“We stopped you being kidnapped,” Gunn offered in mitigation.

“Well, that was… I do appreciate that.” Wesley thought of hypodermics and restraints and men in white coats torturing him politely with long pointed objects, and shuddered. “Really appreciate that.”

“Tomorrow we can start decorating Wesley’s room.” Connor patted him on the back and handed Angel another beaker of blood.

“The room I like exactly the way it is now?”

“That’s the one.” When Connor beamed at him like that, Wesley could definitely see the family resemblance to Angel.

“And – even better than that, now I’m living here permanently, we can step up your lessons considerably. Work on that Latin and Greek a lot more.”

Connor’s face fell and he turned to Angel. “We really need to drum up more business. Help more…helpless.”

“Definitely. We’ve got all these extra mouths to feed now.”

“Plus, it keeps Wesley busy researching.”

Wesley looked at Angel. “You do want Connor to get into Oxford, don’t you?”

“Notre Dame.”

“But that’s an American university, Angel, you can’t possibly want him to go there. I was thinking perhaps…Balliol. Its medieval library is really outstanding, and it has an excellent cricket team.”

“He’s American.”

“Only – technically. His father’s Irish.”

“His mother was American and he was born in America.”

“But in an area of mystical convergence.”

“How do you get from being born in an alley in Los Angeles to two undead parents, neither of whom are English, to Connor having to go to Oxford and play cricket?”

Wesley shrugged. “Well, of course, if you want the boy raised as a complete philistine…”

“Notre Dame is a great college!”

“Gunn, they’re scaring me.” Connor looked between them as if he thought they might be about to sprout two heads.

“That’s just what having two parents is like, kid.” Gunn put an arm around Connor’s shoulders. “Only you got really lucky, and you have…how many is it now? Seven?”

“None of you are old enough to be my parents except for Angel. You get annoying older sibling privileges and nothing else. Except for Wesley, who I’ll grudgingly accept as a mom-substitute.”

Wesley rose to his feet. “Where _did_ I put that flame thrower…?”

“I’m not sure, but I know I’d really like to see you handle it…”

They all wheeled around as Lilah walked down the stairs into the lobby, immaculate as always. She smiled at Angel. “You know the last few times I was in here you were either being tortured or torturing someone. Both of those are always such a good look for you.”

Angel bared his teeth at her in something approaching a smile and held up his beaker of blood. “Lilah. What a not pleasant surprise.”

While Connor looked at her with frank curiosity, Lilah looked Wesley up and down again. “Do I get that thank you now?”

Wesley inclined his head. “Thank you. I’m grateful for the warning. However – spotty your motives for helping us may be, the assistance is still appreciated.”

“Lose the ‘us’, handsome. I wouldn’t step across the road to help the rest of the goody-goodys but you’re a special case.” Lilah walked around him while Wesley made no attempt to hide his irritation at her blatantly checking him out. Wesley tossed her the wallet Angel had given him.

“A present from Linwood. It may be of some use to you.”

She caught it effortlessly. “It may be at that. But don’t you think saving you from being horribly tortured merits…?”

“I was going to suggest lunch at a place of your choice.”

Lilah smiled seductively. “How about breakfast in bed?”

Gunn raised his eyebrows while Angel rolled his eyes. “Subtle, Lilah.”

“She’s very pretty,” Connor observed to Gunn.

Lilah glanced over at him. “Is this the back-from-hell-spawn?”

“I’m Connor.” He held out a hand as Fred had instructed him to do when meeting new people.

She shook it, smiling at him widely. “Lilah Morgan. I had high hopes of vivisecting you when you were a baby, but unfortunately for my promotion prospects Daniel Holtz ruined that dream by carrying you into Quor’toth.”

“He’s dead now.” Wesley had to admire the way Connor said that without a visible flicker of emotion, despite the turmoil he was undoubtedly feeling inside. “So, why do you particularly want to do sex with Wesley?”

She shrugged. “He’s so wonderfully incorruptible and I’ve always liked a challenge. And I like the way he looks.” She glanced across at Wesley again in a blatantly undressing him with her eyes way. “Ever seen a present in a really special wrapping and just been itching to take it home and get all the ribbons and paper off…?”

“Can you not discuss your sexual fantasies in front of my son?” Angel demanded.

“I’d much rather be discussing them with Wesley over lunch.” Lilah turned back to Wesley. “So, tomorrow? I’ll pick you up at twelve. You may as well say yes. I’d hate to have to send in an extraction team.”

“Try it.” Angel picked up an axe. “See how many pieces of them you got back.”

“Ooh…” She beamed at Wesley. “He’s protective, isn’t he? Does that mean that if we do lunch I’ll not only be getting my next stab at corrupting you, I’ll also be annoying soul boy?”

“You do that just by existing, Lilah,” Angel assured her.

Wesley held up a hand. “I’ll be glad to have lunch with you, Lilah. Thank you for your help today. Twelve o’clock tomorrow will be fine.”

She nodded and stepped back. “And we’ll just both take it as read that science geek girl will have Macgyvered some super-duper tracer to stick to you so I can’t kidnap you for my own evil purposes and we both know that and yadda yadda. I hate having to state the obvious.”

“And yet you do it so often.” Angel folded his arms. “Any particular reason why you’re still here?”

“The warm fuzzy welcome was just so hard to resist. You know, every time I look at you I can’t help thinking the first time I saw you – that was really your perfect setting – stuck in a pit fighting for your life like an animal…”

Wesley took Lilah’s arm and walked her to the door. “Thank you again, Lilah. I’ll see you tomorrow at noon.”

She looked him up and down again, smiled in a way that left him breathless and said, “I’ll look forward to it.”

As Wesley headed back for the banquette, Gunn was nodding to Connor. “And that was your first catfight. There’s sometimes more hair pulling but otherwise that’s pretty typical.”

Connor was still watching the way Lilah moved in that tight skirt and high-heeled shoes. “She’s very…attractive.”

“You know all those medieval texts Wesley was telling you were full of misogynist claptrap, with Lucifer always appearing in the guide of a beautiful women to try to steal the virtue of the loyal knights and drag them down to hell…? Women like Lilah are the reason those stories exist.”

Wesley sighed. “She did do us a favour, Angel. And in her own way I think she is…honourable.”

“Well, have sex with her in someone else’s hotel or we’ll have to fumigate your room.”

Gunn nodded at Angel while addressing Connor. “The post-catfight flouncing and pouting is also pretty typical.”

“I’m not flouncing,” Angel retorted. “I just object to the woman who tried to cut up my son putting the moves on my friends.”

Connor looked at Wesley with his head on one side. “I think she just likes him. She smells different when she’s near him and her body temperature rises when she touches him. That’s because of the wanting to do sex with him part, yes?”

Gunn raised an eyebrow. “That’s a sneaky talent to have. It’s going to be difficult for a girl to play hard to get with you, isn’t it?”

“Okay, why was Lilah, the queen bitch of the universe, just here?”

They looked up to see Cordelia at the head of the returning party, all of them carrying bags full of spicy-smelling food.

“She wants to do sex with Wesley,” Connor explained. “She’s having lunch with him tomorrow.”

“Promise me you’ll shower before you come back here – and I mean six times at least.” Cordelia handed him a bag of food. “Oh, and ask her where she got those shoes.”

“This was so not how I wanted my son to find out about the birds and the bees,” Angel muttered sulkily.

Connor was already searching for chicken wings. “Oh, that’s okay, I already heard Gunn and Fred. Fred’s kind of noisy.”

There was a moment of awkward silence before Angel cleared his throat. “Um – Connor – we don’t usually discuss…”

“I know.” Connor grinned at him as he bit off a mouthful of chicken wing. “I just think Fred looks cute when she blushes.”

Cordelia looked between her and Gunn. “Hey, so does Gunn.”

Fred narrowed her eyes. “Connor, I can do things with electricity that will make your hair stand on end for a month.”

Connor held up his hands. “Sorry.”

Gunn looked across at Wesley. “You’ll be giving him extra homework for that, right?”

“It’s a promise,” Wesley assured him, handing food around.

Lorne sat down next to him and held up a glass he had managed to replenish already. “To a new world, sugarplums. To friendships reforged and heirs restored and most of all to not being more than usually dead for another whole long day.”

Wesley held up his tea and Angel leant forward to touch his beaker of blood against Wesley’s cup and Lorne’s glass. Gazing into Wesley’s eyes, Angel said with a smile that warmed Wesley all the way through, “I can drink to that.”

***

 

_Two months later in a Sunnydale in a different reality…_

Giles watched from the kitchen with Buffy as Faith went about setting up the afternoon’s lesson. He and Buffy were pretending to be preparing an early supper, of course, something they could all enjoy before the two Slayers went out on patrol, but in reality they were watching. Buffy, because she was trying to learn how to do what Faith did, and Giles because he couldn’t help himself; he felt so acutely protective of Wesley and his progress that it was difficult for him to share his care and education without constantly hovering, and yet he knew there were things that Faith could offer that he could not.

Right now, Faith was unrecognisable from the woman who gave vampires that chilling smile before the staked them. She was wrinkling her nose at the man sitting cross-legged on the floor.

“Okay – so, today we’re practising weapons recognition. What I’m going to do is make a big crash, okay? Really big noise. And I’m telling you now that even though it sounds scary, it isn’t because it’s just me doing…this…”

Giles winced instinctively as Faith upended a bag full of weapons onto the floor with a sound like several tin trays being hurled into a dustbin and then vigorously shaken. He tended to keep things quiet around Wesley, as did Willow and Xander. It was just their approach. Just as they handled him gently and didn’t say ‘boo’ to him when they came up behind him. Or tickle him. Faith was the wild card with her own approach to rehabilitation. 

Wesley hunched up his shoulders and pulled a face at the hideous crashing noise but he smiled tentatively after a minute because Faith was crouching in front of him, grinning at him. She ruffled his hair. “See, sometimes you gotta be noisy. It’s good for the soul.”

“Giles says…”

“Giles is a _librarian_. You remember what that is?”

Wesley sat up straighter when he answered a question. Faith had teased him about it. She had tried to make him bend to one side or slouch and then tickled him mercilessly and he had giggled a lot but when she asked the next question he still straightened his spine and set his shoulders back. He did it now.

“Someone who cares about books. And the order they go on the shelves.”

“And you remember the notice in the library when we went there the other day?”

“It said we had to be quiet.”

“That’s why Giles thinks everything should be quiet all the time. Too much time spent in libraries.”

“I like libraries.”

“Of course you do. You’re a Watcher. They all like libraries. And tea. And wearing corduroy.” She tugged at his shirt. “Who picked this out for you?”

“I picked it.” He smiled up at her. Faith was the other person in the world who made him feel completely safe. Faith and Giles were the hundred percenters. Willow was about ninety-five percent because of the magic which sometimes made her eyes go black. Xander around the same because Wesley had seen him get drunk once, and people slurring their words worried him a little. Buffy was about ninety percent because of the arguments with Dawn; Dawn around the same because of the arguments with Buffy. But they all made him feel degrees of safe and there wasn’t one of them who didn’t make him light up with pleasure when they arrived at Giles’ door.

“You have cra-crummy Watcher taste. I’m going to get you a stud for this ear…” She tugged it. “And buy you some tight jeans and a sexy t-shirt and make you come out dancing. One of those shirts that don’t cover your tummy. Not that you have a tummy, Skinny-ribs.”

Wesley giggled again because she was tickling him where his imaginary sexy t-shirt would come. He curled up when she tickled him, all boneless and childlike. Sometimes it made Giles smile and sometimes it just made him want to weep.

“Not skinny…” He pretended to pout, looking at her from under his eyelashes.

“Are too skinny.” She picked up an axe. “You ready for today’s lesson?”

He sat up straighter, legs crossed, looking as if he were going to do yoga. He liked lessons. Loved to learn. Was so proud of each new thing he grasped. “Yes.”

“You have to go through all these weapons and put them in piles. Put the ones that look like each other in the same pile. So, where would you put this one?” She handed him the axe and he placed it carefully on his right side. “And this one?” She handed him a crossbow. He took it and compared it gravely with the axe and then put it on his left side. “And what about this one?” That was harder, as it was a sword, and so had a handle and then a sharp metallic edge, but its shape was different and after a moment’s consideration, Wesley put that in a third pile in front of his crossed legs. He looked to her for a reaction and she gave him a half-smile. “Okay, pretty smart so far, but we’ve got a lot of weapons here. What about this one?” Another sword, but shorter than the others. Wesley took it from her and compared it to the crossbow then the axe and then the sword, he held it over the sword, the handle the same but the blade shorter and after a moment’s consideration placed it tentatively between the sword and the axe.

“Now, you pick one.” As he reached across and then hesitated, looking up at her for advice, she shook her head, still smiling at him. “No, Wes, you’ve got to choose yourself. And it doesn’t matter which one you choose first because you’re going to have to put every single one into a pile.”

“All of them?” He looked at the pile wide-eyed; expression so trusting and earnest that it was very difficult to believe he would be thirty before many months were past. 

“Every single one. And I’m not going to help. You have to do it yourself. And then do you know what you have to do?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“Well, I’ll tell you when we get there. Right now, you have to put them in piles. Do you want some tea?”

He smiled. “Yes, please.”

“You drink too much tea, you know that?”

“I like it.”

“I like sex with bikers. Don’t see me doing that every hour on the hour, do you?”

He giggled again and darted a look at where Giles might be watching them. Giles wasn’t sure how Wesley had ended him up perceiving him as the disapproving adult and Faith as the naughty friend, but he always did that, looked to see if Giles was going to tell anyone off. Faith got to her feet and ruffled his hair again. Wesley rolled his eyes at her and combed it carefully with his fingers, then leant forward to pick the next weapon, eyes alight with interest now as he compared and contrasted.

“You’re so patient,” Buffy murmured as Faith came into the kitchen. “I wish I was as patient with Dawn.”

Faith shrugged. “He’s my Watcher. Least he’s going to be once I get him retrained. I’m going to enter him for the Watcher Olympics and he’s going to kick the ass of every crabby old fart Quentin Travers thinks is better than him.”

“There isn’t a Watcher Olympics, Faith,” Giles pointed out, handing her a cup of tea for herself. “Apart from that I see no flaw in your plan whatsoever.”

She looked at the cup and shook her head fondly. “Still trying to push those teabags on the unsuspecting, G-Man? You hang around outside playgrounds with free samples?”

“Constantly,” he assured her. “I’m fully intending to have a Darjeeling and Rich Tea biscuit habit formed in every first grader in town by the end of the year.” 

They all craned their necks to see how Wesley was doing. He had six piles now: Axes, crossbows, long swords, short swords, daggers, and stakes. Faith had been careful to remove anything that didn’t fall into one of those categories before she started this exercise, not wanting him confused by scimitars or throwing discs; they could come later when he had gained in confidence.

“That’s my boy,” Faith murmured.

Faith and Giles shared most of Wesley’s care between them, but everyone had chipped in: Buffy, Willow, Xander, Dawn. Dawn had spent hours with him going through her old books, reading him stories, doing simple sums with him with candy or cookies: ‘Okay. How many sweets do we have? Four? I make it that too. Now you eat one. Pick any one you like. That one? What colour is that one? Yes, you do know, you’re just teasing me. Is it pink? Is it yellow? Is it sky-blue-orange with polka dots? That’s right, it’s red. No, you have to eat it and you can talk with your mouth full because Giles isn’t here to tell you that you can’t. So, how many are there left? Three. Yes! And what colour are they…?’ Giles had loved Dawn like a daughter for a very long time now; or remembered loving her as a daughter anyway; but he wasn’t sure that he ever loved her with quite the same acute intensity as when she was being so endlessly patient with Wesley.

Faith carried the two cups of tea back into the room. “I’m only drinking this to keep you company. Doesn’t mean I’m going to start eating cucumber sandwiches and having a funny accent like you and Giles.”

“Don’t have a funny accent.” Wesley said it casually as he picked up the next weapon; gaining in confidence now, especially when he had an axe then a stake and then a crossbow; things that were nothing like each other and easy to categorize. “We just talk properly.” He darted her a look from under his eyelashes as he said that to see if she was going to be angry or if it was as funny to her as he thought it was.

“Making fun of the Americans now, eh?” She tugged at his t-shirt. “Who is going to have to pay for that with a jumbo sized tickling later?”

“I’ll tell Giles,” he said, grinning at her.

“Giles won’t save you. He’s going to watch some boring _film_ with sub-titles. It’ll be just you and me. Okay, and Xander.”

“Xander’s coming?” Wesley looked up in surprised pleasure. “Tonight?”

“Yes, if you’re good, and do all your lessons. Maybe he will and maybe he’ll bring you some of those pancakes you like.”

Wesley quickly put stakes with stakes, axes with axes and swords with swords, then looked up her a little anxiously to see if he’d done it right.

She examined his piles carefully and then nodded. “That looks okay to me. Do you know what they’re called?”

“Big sword. Not so big sword. Knife. What’s that one?”

“You tell me.” She hefted the weapons book onto his lap. “Look it up.”

He looked down at the book, opened it, and then said, “I don’t know how. I look up words with Giles. He writes them down and then I look for them in the index – which is usually at the back but sometimes at the front if you can’t find it at the back.”

“Okay. Well, you turn the pages where the pictures are. Can you find the pictures?”

Wesley turned the pages very carefully. Giles had never said anything to him about books being fragile or needing to be handled with care, but he had either picked up Giles’ anxiety about them or else it was just something inherent to Wesley; even a Wesley who was having to relearn everything from scratch. He found the illustrations at last, colour plates in the centre and examined them with interest. He sometimes forgot what he was looking up, not through a lack of concentration skills – Giles thought he had excellent concentration skills – but because everything was so fascinating to him. After five minutes of him not turning a page as he avidly read what was written under each one, Faith said, “And what are you doing right now, Wes?”

He looked up guiltily. “Looking up weapons.”

“Which weapons?”

“The ones here…” He looked between the ones in the piles and the ones on the page a little sheepishly. “Which aren’t like these.”

“So…” She gave him a little nudge and he smiled and turned the page.

“Giles let’s me take my time.”

“Giles is as bad as you are. Some of us don’t have all the time in the world. You found them yet?” As he got to the page, she put her hand across the word underneath. “So, before you look, do you remember?”

“It's a crossbow but I still don't know why it's not a crucifix bow?” 

“Because it's a crossbow.”

“But you said that a piece of wood that shape was a crucifix.”

“It is. But it’s a cross, too. Tell me what a crucifix can do?”

“It scares off vampires.”

“And what don’t we do with vampires? Ever?”

“Invite them in.” Wesley looked solemn. That one had been repeated to him several times with great intensity. He knew this was an important lesson; probably the most important lesson.

“And how do we know someone is a vampire just by looking at them?”

“We don’t.”

“So, what does that mean? If the doorbell rings and there’s someone standing outside the door who we don’t recognize…?”

“We never invite them in. We ask them to wait outside and we go and find Giles or you or Buffy or Willow or Xander and tell them someone is at the door.”

She ruffled his hair again. “That’s my boy. Drink your tea, it’ll get cold. And what does that mean? Knowing that we never invite them into this house?”

“That vampires can’t ever come here or hurt any of us as long as we’re in the house.” Wesley smiled when he said that. That was his safety blanket. The one they always gave back to him after telling him about how dangerous vampires were and how they could hurt him and how careful he had to be and why Buffy and Faith had to go out every night and fight them – that as long as he was in this house they could never come inside and hurt him or anyone else who was in the house with him.

“So – what’s this weapon called?”

“Crossbow.” 

She took her hand off the lettering. “You know how to spell that?”

“Yes.” He rolled his eyes. “It’s easy.”

“Okay, smarty pants, because you’re going to have to do that soon. What’s this one called? If you don’t remember, look for the picture.”

Wesley did so and then said triumphantly: “Axe.”

“That’s right. And this one?”

“It’s a stake you kill vampires with, not a steak you eat.”

“And you know how to spell one from the other?”

Wesley nodded. “A stake you kill vampires with has a-k-e because it makes vampires achey when you kill them.” He grinned at her triumphantly, teasing her and knowing it.

“That’s one of Dawn’s isn’t it? How many dumb little sayings is she going to make you learn?”

“Giles has sayings too but he calls them mnemonics. He says it comes from _mnemonikos_ , which is Greek, which comes from _mnemon_ for mindful, which comes from _mnasthai_ , to remember. We wrote _mnemonikos_ in Greek.” He smiled at her triumphantly and Giles also smiled faintly at the memory of that lesson, Wesley’s fascination with those other alphabets, the different shapes the words made upon the page.

Faith gazed at him levelly. “I love Giles, I swear, but if you spend too much time with him you are never going to get laid. Okay.” Faith reached behind her and handed him a marker pen and a stack of scrap paper. “You need to write down what’s in each pile and then put the piece of paper on top of the pile.”

“Just the names of the weapons or how many there are as well?”

“Names and numbers, Watcher boy.

He smiled because that was a bit more difficult and he liked things that were a challenge. He wrote very neatly, copying exactly from the book and had a good visual eye for script, Giles had already noticed that; copperplate or cuneiform, if he was copying he could copy both equally well.

“So, what else did you do with Giles today?” Faith leaned against the couch from her position on the floor, drinking her tea as she watched him writing the labels for each pile.

“Copying passages. There was one about a cult of vampires with two swords, and one about some demons who pass on an aspect of themselves if they bleed on you. And another one.” He frowned, trying to remember. “Oh yes, one about different dimensions. Did you know there were hell dimensions?” He looked up from his writing.

“I heard about that.”

“Can we fall into them? If we were just going to the shops to buy something? Could we just trip and be in a hell dimension?”

“No.” She shook her head emphatically. “It’s difficult to get to one of those places. You can’t do it by accident.”

His face cleared and Giles thought that, once again, Faith the impetuous instinctive teacher had headed off a nightmare that he, the anxious father figure, might have unconsciously caused. It was very difficult to try to tutor a fragile newly-seared-clean mind about the world in which they lived without laying up pockets of dark matter; nightmarish ideas and images to haunt him through his already sometimes tangled dreams.

Wesley frowned over his counting. “What comes after twenty-seven?”

“What comes after seven?”

“Eight.”

“So, why do you think it would be any different if there’s a twenty in front of it?”

Wesley thought about that for a moment and then nodded. “Oh. That makes sense.”

“Most things do.” She grinned at him. “Except for our lives.”

He reached behind him and held up the disreputable-looking soft toy rabbit the sweet but eccentric Fred from the other dimension had given him. “Feigenbaum controls the chaos.”

Faith leaned forward to pluck the rabbit from his fingers and regarded it critically. “Well, I don’t think he’s controlling it as well as he should be.”

Wesley glanced up at her from his calculations. “We haven’t fallen into a hell dimension, have we? You should thank him for that.”

“Thank you, Feigenbaum. You’re doing a bang-up job.” Faith solemnly shook his paw and then rolled her eyes. “What am I doing? You are _not_ going to turn me as sappy as Xander.”

“Will you read to me?” 

Wesley loved to be read to. Even though he was learning to read again himself at great speed and seemed to be able to learn several languages at once, there was something about being read to that made him happier than any book he read himself. 

Faith narrowed her eyes at him. “I don’t do the bedtime story thing. That’s Giles and Xander’s job.”

“Yes, you do.” Wesley frowned in confusion. “You’ve read to me lots of…”

Faith scuttled across the room to clamp a hand across his mouth, repeating firmly: “I don’t do the bedtime story thing.”

He gazed at her for a moment and then as she took her hand away said gravely, “So – lying then?”

“Damned right.” She thumped him gently on the arm. “That’s one of the things we always lie about. I am _not_ being nailed for the sappy stuff.”

“If you read to me now it wouldn’t be bedtime and so it wouldn’t be sappy, would it?” he suggested.

“Don’t get cute with me.” She gave him Feigenbaum and checked his work with the weapons. “Okay. You got the names right. You got the numbers right. You are a good Watcher.”

He smiled at the praise, even half-joking praise like that, positively lit up because Faith had told him he was good.

She reached up and stroked his hair back, then took a comb out of her back pocket and with a few deft strokes tidied the hair she had earlier disordered. “I need to get you a better haircut. And we have got to do something about these garage sale clothes.” She looked into his eyes. “And you are a good Watcher, Wes. And by the time Giles and I have finished training you, you’re going to be the best Watcher ever in the history of Watcherdom.”

He positively beamed at that and then looked uncertain and anxious in case it wasn’t true. Faith put her arms around him and pulled him in against her and just for a second Giles saw the bleak misery wash across her face because the man she had known in the past – got drunk with and shared confidences with and gone on patrol with – was gone forever; but there was this other Wesley here now and there was a fierce tenderness upon her face when she held him that was unlike any other expression he had ever seen flicker across her mobile countenance. She rubbed his back gently – none of them could bear to touch him anything but gently, too mentally scarred still by what they had brought back from the Hyperion, all those wounds he hadn’t even noticed any more because what he had witnessed had been so terrible even razor blades and cigarettes held against his skin were nothing by comparison. 

He loved to be held but he didn’t know how to ask to be held, which was why Faith, of all people, she who was the most uncomfortable person Giles had ever met with physical or emotional intimacy, the girl brought up in a trailer by a drunken mother and a succession of white trash boyfriends whom Giles very much feared had probably molested her on more than one occasion, had been forced to re-educate herself as someone who touched others. She was now someone who ruffled Wesley’s hair and hugged him and rubbed his back and held him when those strange inexplicable nightmares came back to haunt him. He had panic attacks sometimes and didn’t know why. But he never screamed or did anything audible to alert them. He would just go rigid and shake. Faith had developed something uncannily like a sixth sense where they were concerned. They could be talking in the kitchen having left him happily looking at books or interesting artefacts when she would suddenly sprint to where he was. By the time Giles and the others followed her in confusion, Wesley would be in her arms with her rocking him and rubbing his back and telling him that he was safe, he was absolutely safe and she was never ever going to let anything bad happen to him. Giles didn’t know if he was the brother she had admitted she had spent her childhood wishing for or the child she would probably never have, but whatever else Wesley was now, he was certainly her Achilles heel and her burden and without a doubt her most precious possession.

She eased him back away from her gently, rubbing his upper arms with light reassuring strokes. “Do you want me to read to you now?”

He lit up. “Now? Really?” He glanced out of the window. “Even though it’s still light?”

“Couch looks comfy enough. Be a while until Xander gets here, and Buffy and Giles haven’t finished making supper yet. What do you want to read?”

He darted across to his bookcase; the one that had looked so incongruous to Giles at first in the middle of his familiar home but which he now just accepted as part of the new order of things; that mixture of picture books and Dorling Kindersley guides and then first readers and now worn paperbacks and old hardbacks. Wesley plucked a book from it and held it up so Faith could see it.

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, could you be any sappier? I can’t read a girls’ book.”

“Xander reads me girls’ books.”

“Well, Xander is way girlier than me. And you’re going to grow up girlier than him at this rate.” 

Giles wondered if she’d noticed herself doing that; talking as if Wesley was a child. He supposed she meant grown up mentally, which was the process they were nurturing and observing at the moment in many ways, teaching him how to read and write and do arithmetic. 

Wesley never cared what Faith said to him. He was sensitive and easy to crush in many ways; Giles spent a lot of time picking his words with care so as to keep his fragile self-esteem buoyant, but with Faith that didn’t seem to apply. Wesley knew she loved him. He knew it completely and he knew it apparently with every molecule in his being. She could tell him he looked like day old camel dung and he’d still know it was a joke. So, now he just beamed at her, even though if Giles had said the same thing in far more tactful words Wesley would have been upset or hurt or angry or sulky. “Nothing wrong with being girly.” Wesley pushed the book at her. “Slayers are girly.”

“No, we’re _girls_. Not girly. Girly is wanting someone to read _A Little Princess_ to you for the twenty-seventh-millionth time.” But she was doing it, miraculously enough, she was settling herself on the couch so he could settle next to her, and she was opening the book at the first page and holding it out so he could read it with her and check that she wasn’t missing anything out. And she would show him the pictures and ask him questions throughout to make sure he was understanding everything – which he was now; not surprising really. Willow had explained it by saying Wesley was like a computer hard-drive that had been reformatted. Everything had been wiped but the memory and hard drive capacity were the same as they’d always been. Wesley still had a swift agile hungry mind; he just didn’t have his accumulation of nearly three decades of experience to draw upon. 

Xander kept trying to find a silver lining, saying that Wesley would be able to read every Agatha Christie again and not know who the murderer was, and Giles was trying to make himself think that way as well, all those things that were new to him and exciting and fresh and fascinating. Otherwise he would have to break down and cry about what had been done to this brilliant young man more than his customary once a week.

He felt a gentle pressure on his arm and turned around to see Buffy there. She said gently, “He really is happy, Giles.”

“I know.” He took off his glasses to wipe his eyes. “It’s just… Those poor women…and all that knowledge… All that suffering, for nothing, to no purpose at all – the corpses of his friends used to make such a mockery of everything they must have held so dear.”

“That’s why it’s good he doesn’t remember,” she said softly. “It’s good that all he knows is this.” She spread out her hands to encapsulate the house, the people that he knew now, his life. 

Giles knew she mourned Angel still. That she had fits of heartbroken weeping in the middle of the night, but she didn’t regret that Angelus was dead; she might be selfish, she had said, one night, but not so selfish that she wanted Angel to have to wake up to the memory of killing his own child, of raping Cordelia and Fred to death. Angel would never have to deal with any of that. Angel’s last moment upon this earth had been spent in a state of perfect happiness, knowing that his son was going to grow up to be a hero, and that all of his friends loved him absolutely. Everything from them on had been Angelus. But that didn’t mean she didn’t miss him, every single day. Giles was relieved, all the same, that it had not been him and Faith who had fired the bolts that turned Angelus to dust. 

Giles thought about Wesley’s life, and this time made himself do as Xander did and not weep for what was gone but think about what it must be like for him to have so many new books to read and new things to learn and to be surrounded by people who loved him as much as they all did. Even more than they had done before, if he was honest, because in the past Wesley had been someone who presented a version of himself to them that had been likeable enough certainly and had won their genuine affection and respect, but now what they got was undisguised and innocent and trusted them all absolutely, and they loved him unconditionally with varying degrees of Faith’s passionate protective adoration. 

Giles drew in a deep breath. “I wonder if he’d like a dog? I’ve found several references to dogs being sensitive to certain dangerous demon species that might pass for human with the right glamour. And for tracking, a dog could be invaluable.”

“And puppies are cute and Wesley would love it.” Buffy lit up. “The only problem would be that you’d have Xander, Willow and Dawn as permanent house guests too.”

Giles managed a proper smile this time. “There are worse fates. We could discuss it with Xander and the others, perhaps, when Faith takes Wesley to the library tomorrow. Try to pick a breed that would be suitable for Slayer duties and…amenable to…”

“Being spoilt rotten?”

“That too.”

Buffy said quietly, “He’s going to be okay, Giles. He’s not going to be who he was before, but he’s going to be someone who’s happy and relatively sane and who is safe with us. How many people can you say that about? I’m the girl with the prophetic dreams, remember? And I know in my heart that Wesley is going to be okay.”

Giles looked across at where Faith had her arm around him, Wesley bent over so that even though he was so much taller than her, he could rest his head on her chest; her fingers idly tousling his hair. He wondered if it was some kind of residual fear that made Wesley need to hear a heartbeat, and which made him so aware of heartbeats and pulses and the warmth of skin. Sometimes he was even soothed by the ticking of a watch. Giles had found it odd at first, disconcerting, to have someone who, whatever he was mentally was also a grown man, needed to press so closely against him and listen to his heartbeat, but he was used to it now. They all were; would absently hold out their wrists for him to feel the pulse or listen to the tick of their watches; would arrange themselves on the sofa so that he could hear their heartbeat easily. Wesley was listening to Faith’s heartbeat as he read the book, gaze darting along the print at a much swifter rate than even the last time they had read this story together. 

He was learning at such a rate and was being taught with so much kindness – mistakes were being made, Giles had no doubt of that as they were all beginners in many ways but he hoped that their good intentions would outweigh any number of tactical stumbles – that it was not difficult to imagine that in a few years time Wesley would be to all outward appearances a perfectly ‘normal’ thirty-something. Someone who could be told the truth about what had happened to him in the past. It occurred to him that when that time came, they would all probably – in between congratulating themselves and Wesley upon this achievement – feel a pang of regret for these early days of stumbling along the path of discovery together. 

At present each day seemed a little newer because so many things were exciting to Wesley. Old books Giles had almost forgotten about suddenly a source of another’s enthusiasm. He had almost forgotten how wonderful old leather smelt, how clever it was, the way a book was bound, the stitching and the glue, and the smell of the paper. All things Wesley revelled in, so excited by the different textures and scents of them. And food. All those foodstuffs they never really thought about that Wesley found so fascinating: the sticky and sweet and icy and spicy. The way different languages were written, what a pretty shape an ampersand made upon the page, how exciting it was to look at a cylinder seal and know someone must have truly been alive all those centuries ago to make these actual markings. Electricity and steam engines and fossils and popcorn and okapis. All those kings and queens and what had become of them. The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Dinosaurs and sabre toothed tigers and woolly mammoths. The difference between fantasy and reality and how some things that pretended to be real were illusions and some things that looked too fantastical to be real were entirely three-dimensional. It was all exciting to Wesley, and it was impossible to stand on the brink of someone else’s excitement and not be a little effected by it also. So, they were already a little less jaded than they’d been before, more emotionally open with each other because they could be nothing else with Wesley, minds stimulated by more than just the ever-present daily battle with the forces of darkness. Thinking of things he might want to see, places he might like to visit, books he might want to read, food he might want to taste; thinking of new ways to explain things, new ways of looking; rediscovering music and art and literature and natural history and ancient history and even sunsets and sunrises because the sun had been rising every day before but it was different somehow when one decided to drive Wesley up to a viewpoint so he could watch it come up. Or when he discovered pictures or descriptions of places one or more of you had always intended to visit to which that there was now an excuse to go because it would be so wonderful for Wesley to see the pyramids, to see the Grand Canyon, to visit the ocean so he could watch the sun sinking into the sea. 

They had taken on this mind-wrecked body-ravaged refugee from a tragedy and he had made their lives better. Giles realized that quite suddenly; that it wasn’t just that Wesley would one day be okay, was indeed already okay, was excited and stimulated and fascinated by the world around him and knew himself to be safe and loved and of vital importance to every single person that ever crossed the threshold to the small kingdom that was his home; but that they were all different because of him. Faith had a purpose she had never had before; not just the slave to a mythic destiny but the protector of this fascinating human being who certainly loved her as no one else ever had or perhaps ever would. And Giles felt as if some part of him – a small part but there nevertheless – that had been left unfulfilled by helping Buffy in her work when she was never going to be interested in the whys and wherefores of the research, only the results – was being satisfied every day with these quiet lessons with Wesley. And Dawn had started to sit in on some of them, asking very humbly if they would mind if she also copied out the passages in cuneiform and Aramaic and listened to the explanations of how the different languages had evolved. Just in case she went insane and decided to become a Watcher herself some day. There was a spring in Xander’s step Giles hadn’t seen before as well; frustrated parenting instincts finally getting an outlet with someone that didn’t feel smothered by his attention, and because Xander had never really had enough love, and Wesley undoubtedly loved him. The world had too often reflected back to Xander that he was unimportant; not the one chosen, not the one necessary. What Wesley reflected back to Xander was that he was a good man who made someone who had been horribly traumatized smile with relief when he saw him, and who felt better when he was around and missed him when he left. 

And Willow’s fascination with magic had been – not curtailed really, just moderated a little – by Wesley’s equal interest in it. It was as if answering his questions about the way magic worked, explaining to him the way magic demanded balance, how dangerous it could be, how one always had to be aware that one was dealing with a natural force, as potentially powerful as a lightning strike, had made her realize it also in a way she had never done before. She did smaller magic now and seemed to think long and hard about whether each spell was necessary, what it would take from her, the surrounding environment, if it would in any way cause another small imbalance to the cosmos. She had promised him they could do some very small spells together but only if he promised her faithfully that he would never do any spells without her or Giles with him. He was a quick study and repeated it back to her so often – how dangerous it was, what damage it could do, why one must always be very careful and never use magic frivolously – that she seemed to recognize and understand those truths in a way she never truly had before. Giles had noticed she had started meeting Tara for coffee again and that when he saw Tara in the street now she was smiling a lot more often; a reconciliation something that seemed to be very much on the cards. 

Their good deed to a friend they had barely seen for a few years had turned into something that had benefited all of them; even Buffy smiled more now, could not go from being gentle and quiet and patient with Wesley to being intolerant and uncaring with her sister, while Dawn seemed less inclined to mope these days, never lacking a focus or diversion because Wesley would _always_ enjoy another lesson or to be read to or to try a science experiment or painting or clay modelling or anything at all that Dawn might want to do. Having someone who was never too busy to play with her and was always happy to see her had done wonders for Dawn’s feeling of being unwanted. Giles had to admit, if only in the privacy of his own head, that it had done a great deal to alter his feeling of being redundant as well. None of them had ever been so needed as they were by this extremely fragile fellow human being, and yet taking care of Wesley rarely felt like a chore and so often seemed to repay their time and trouble tenfold.

“You do believe me, don’t you?” Buffy asked tentatively. “That Wesley is going to be okay? You know I wouldn’t say it unless I truly believed it.”

Giles smiled at her and this time there was no need for subterfuge or eye avoidance. “I believe you, Buffy. And I think you’re absolutely right.” He looked back into the sitting room where Faith was just turning the page, Wesley listening to her heartbeat as he followed the story with rapt attention, her fingers still gently disarranging his hair. “I think he’s going to be okay too. Perhaps better than okay.” _And perhaps all of us are going to be better than okay because of Wesley too. Or perhaps Feigenbaum really is the Master of Chaos and we owe it all to a lop-eared stuffed bunny rabbit. But either way, I think that out of that terrible tragedy, that pointlessly cruel loss of valuable life, something rather important is taking place. I believe that every one of us values every hour of every day in a way we never did before and I think I know now that the world is a wonderful, impossible, terrible and fascinating place and we should never take it or our place in it for granted._

He would tell Buffy some or all of what he was thinking later, the way he always did with her eventually. But for now he just felt lighter, not just his heart, but as if some leaden weight upon his soul, that had perhaps been there since Jenny’s death, had finally been lifted. Although all he said aloud was, “Oh look, there’s Xander coming. I think he’s brought pancakes.”

##### The End

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: ANGEL and its characters is the property of Joss Whedon (Mutant Enemy), David Greenwalt (LazyDave), Fox, and the WB network. No copyright infringement is intended. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author. This story may not be posted elsewhere without the consent of the author.


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